‘Solitude is my greatest dread’ – Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

We have ten days of holidays for All Saints’. Since we broke up on Friday, the dread of solitude has compelled all of us assistants to seek one another’s company in order to compulsively DO THINGS, leaving very little time for updating LJ despite my theoretically increased free time. So, I’m going to make up for this it now.

We started on Friday night by going to Hannah’s house to eat crepes. Yes, you read that right – Hannah is an assistant, Hannah possesses a house. It has two bedrooms, two toilets, a kitchen, a living room, and only one resident. We are all exceedingly jealous, of course – her school sorted it out for her, whereas all of our schools have been utterly useless.  Anyway, she had bought a crepe machine and lots of crepes were made and eaten. There was almost English-German parity (I know all four German girls in Tours, and they are all lovely), making the English feel incredibly inferior about their language skills. I can now almost pronounce Eichhörnchen though.

Saturday was a day of lounging in Tim’s room (Tim is half-Korean, laid back, from Wales, lives in a room of 14m² in the Foyer de Jeune Travailleurs, basically a dorm) with Judith (German, wonderful). He cooked risotto and then we watched The Hangover and Role Models in succession, both silly but amusing American films aimed at teenage boys. We went to bed somewhat too late considering the next day was to involve cycling to a chateau 18 kilometres away.

On Sunday, we started by going to Velpeau market (awesome market full of deliciousness) before embarking on the epic trip. It took about an hour and a half to get there, including a short break for trying to catch lizards by their tails. Once at Villandry Chateau, we looked around the gardens, which are truly incredible and well worth the visit, as well as the interior of the chateau which was predictably dull. Then we had some ice cream... oh god. French ice cream is indescribably heavenly and puts everything in Britain to shame. We cycled back, got to Judith’s at about 5pm, cooked, ate, watched 8 Femmes in French without subtitles (resulting in confusion) and the first episode of Skins, which I’d never seen before but thought was really good. Then it was hometime.

On Monday, I was tired and lazy and did nothing all morning. In the evening, Tim and Judith came over for curry and wine, along with one of Judith’s university friends from Cologne who is currently in Rennes, not far from Tours. Then we went to the Café des langues as is usual for Monday evenings, where we met the rest of the group.

Tuesday was another day of meeting up in a large group (3 of the Germans + 1 from Rennes, 3 English) to go to the Botanical Gardens. They had wallabies and flamingos. I touched a wallaby in the face! It seemed reasonably pleased about this. Later we went to eat in a lovely little creperie about one minute from my apartment and then went to a bar.

I seem to have nothing planned for the next few days, although the only French guy I vaguely know has asked me to go to a film with him. However, come Monday, I’ll be very busy – I’m spending Monday in Poitiers with a friend from Oxford, and Tuesday in Nantes, further down the Loire, in Brittany. I haven’t seen much of France really, so it will be nice to see a few more cities.

So, I know that was entirely too much information to be interesting, but generally I am keeping busy and happy with lovely people. Here is a concise list of friends to avoid confusion in future:

Rachel – one of the first people I met. She is 22, Sheffield University (although she applied to Cambridge), from Nottingham, and one of those unfailingly friendly English protestants. She lives in North Tours with a young couple and often has to look after their son.

Judith – the German assistant at Rachel’s school. She’s from Cologne and lives quite far to the South in an apartment with 3 Frenchies. Also unerringly friendly and a good cook.

Tim – Half-Korean, from Wales, goes to King’s College (although he also applied to Cambridge). Likes saying “that’s what she said” and downloading films, eats too many kebabs, generally very amusing. Lives in the Foyer.

Diana – American from Chicago, lives in the Foyer with Tim, likes speaking Portuguese and French bread.

Hannah – German with a house! I believe she is from Stuttgart. She wants to be a French and Theology teacher in Germany afterwards. Likes English food, inexplicably!

Johanna – German from Swabia, near Mercedes. Does not like football, does like linguistics! I don’t actually know where she lives.

Maria Christina (usually just Marie) – The German assistant at my school, I haven’t seen her much of lately because her family has been over visiting. She is from Rostock on the Baltic coast in East Germany, has a strong Baltic identity and a Swedish-speaking boyfriend. Lives far in the North with a hippy family.