Hola from México!

17:20 | by Danielle
So I made it! I'm here in Mexico! We're currently in Guadalajara and we have a couple of weeks to settle in and get used to la vida mexicana before we start in the massive Universidad de Guadalajara. The university system is a little different here; the university covers the prep school system as well as having under and post grads - making for a total of around 200,000 students! That's CRAZY BIG! UEA only has about 15,00
0. The university is spread out all over the city and has campuses in other areas of Jalisco. We're going to
study in CUSCH, which is the social sciences and humanities faculty of the university. I've heard lots of things about the university here and how laid back both the students and professors are - I bet it's going to be an experience to say the least!

As you probably know, we flew into Mexico City and spent a few days there. Initially I was really, really nervous. I read so much about the crime there so I managed to scare myself silly about everything. However, once we got there, I felt a lot better. The city again is huge; around 20 million people live there and due to this and other things, it's considered a megalopolis (I love that word - I use it at every available opportunity!), and although we were vigilant
and were careful, the city itself feels quite human. We stayed in the Zona Rosa, which was about a 10 minute metro ride from the Centro Histórico. Here is the amazing Catedral Metropolitana and the government buildings etc. We stopped for ice cream and took it some of the sights. I wish you could capture smell in
a photo - it truly was amazing and delicious! I also decided to take on my fear of heights and we went to the top of the Torre Latinoamericano... All 42 floors! It used to be Latin America's biggest skyscraper - until something bigger and better came along, of course!

We also visited the Museo de Antropología, which features on a lot of the 'top ten things to do in Mexico', it was interesting but so big, it was impossible to take it all in during one visit.





On our final day in Mexico City, we decided to go on full-on tourists. We took the open topped TuriBus! It was great fun, we sat just on the bus for it's whole route and looked at everything. We saw parts of the city that we wouldn't have thought to go to - like the upmar
ket Polanco, the streets were lined with Tiffany & Co, Cartier, Luis Vuitton etc.

A tiny bit out of my price range!!
After four days in Mexico City, the time came to get on the bus to Guadalajara. The bus was SO nice, we'd picked a 'luxury' bus company for safety and comfort really, but it was so much better than I was expecting! We got a little packed lunch before we got on, huge reclining seats, tons of room. It was great! Way more comfortable than our flight with British Airways, if I'm honest.
Then we arrived in GDL, and it was a little overwhelming to be in another city. We're living in the Zona Centro, not the most posh area of the city but close to the centre. The flat seems a little too big for just the two of us at the moment, we're awaiting 3 other housemates. A German girl who is travelling at the moment and two Dutch girls. Hopefully we'll all get along okay.

I'm struggling with the Mexican accent and I don't understand much at all, haha. Hopefully as time goes on, I'll adjust to the accent and the completely different vocabulary! We're taking extra Spanish classes which I hope will help me along my way a little.

I think that's me pretty much up to date. We're visiting Tequila this Saturday so hopefully that'll give me lots to blog about ;) Besitos xo

(also apologies again for the screwy layout... silly photos)
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Next stop: Mexico

12:05 | by Danielle
I've completed the first half of my year abroad and I'm one day away from starting the second half. On Wednesday, I go to Heathrow and board a flight to Mexico City. This is a really big deal for me, super exciting but equally nerve-racking. Latin America, and particularly Mexico, have interested me pretty much as long as I have studied Spanish. I was lucky enough to study a couple of Latin American culture modules in the first and second years of uni and this further ignited my passion for these fascinating countries. I remember waking up one day and I'd decided that I wanted to go to Mexico instead of Spain for the Spanish part of my year abroad. I also remember the look of horror on my classmates faces when I told them. I'm in the minority choosing to go that far!

Fiona and I will be spending three days in Mexico City initially, perhaps taking in some touristy sights and then we get on a bus a travel the 8 hours to Guadalajara, where I will spend the next 6 months. We decided to rent an apartment from our university co-ordinator in GDL, rather than to worry about finding somewhere to live and viewing properties alone etc. Although it's unlikely we'll be living with a house-full of Mexicans, for me, knowing I'd have somewhere to live was quite important! Once we arrive in GDL, we'll have around 2 weeks to get settled in, explore the city a little and get used to the Mexican way of life! I appear to have forgotten all my Spanish but hopefully it'll come to me once I start hearing it every day again.

Going to Mexico is a massive challenge for me, it's a long way from home and I won't be able to have people visit or go home. I've packed lots of goodies to help my room feel more like my home and I'm sure it'll be an amazing experience for me. Getting quite nervous now though!

I'm going to leave it there for my pre-Mexico blog... Hopefully I'll blog soon when I get there - amongst the hustle and bustle of Mexico City! xo
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(untitled)

13:59 | by Danielle
Oops. I clearly am not doing very well at this whole blogging frequently thing! It seems to be a combination of time going super quick and the fact that I am not really doing anything interesting at the moment!

Anyway, I'm on home straight now! 3 and a half weeks until I'm back in Angleterre for 3 weeks. To be honest, I am really excited. I have been in France just under 13 weeks now and I feel like I have hit a stalemate at the moment. I'm stuck in a bit of a rut! I go to my classes but do not particularly enjoy them. I have really come to appreciate the quality of my university at home. I know we pay a lot more with regards to tuition fees but here, the class groups are a lot bigger and we have
much more academic freedom in England. Not to say the French system is wrong, but my education at home is much more tailored to what I want to do and more personal. I have some very interesting classes here (I enjoy Latin and I have a great history and civilisation lecture) but I still find it odd that I am taking 9 different modules that are completely unrelated. It reminds me a lot of taking my GCSEs at school. As I said earlier, since the classes are so big and we only have two hours a week for each module it's difficult to build up a relationship with your teacher, and that's something I really cherish about UEA - I'm not just a number! Anyway, enough about my university life, I'm sure I'll have lots to say when my exams start in a couple of weeks .. eek!

What have I been doing? Well, I was lucky enough to have my parents come and visit a few weeks back and it was so lovely to see them. I went to Lourdes to meet them and I took them back to Pau from there. I don't think my Dad has ever used so much public transport!

We did the usual tour around Pau and I showed them the usual things to see, I ate far too much but it was so nice to have hot food (another thing I am so looking forward to at home!). It was so
nice to let them see the mountains, as I have said before, I love being so close to them and it really is something special to open your curtains and see the Pyrenees each morning. I think that is something I will miss the most about Pau.

Also, we hired a car for a couple of days and I decided to make the most of this luxury so we went on a little excursion to San Sebastian, Spain!

It was so surreal to cross the border and see everything go from
being in French to suddenly being in Spanish! Being so close to the Basque country here, you can experience a little of the influence from this culture but in San Sebastian, we were completely immersed. On the majority of road signs, the writing was in Basque before it was in Spanish and believe me, Basque is something completely different to any other language I have ever studied (and I have studied bits and bobs of Italian, Russian, Portuguese, Latin, as well as the obvious French and Spanish). As a language student, it's really interesting for me since academics/historians don't really know where the Basque language originated from. Another interesting thing is that Pau actually offers Basque as a language option and I believe you can take it as a degree in it's Bayonne campus! Euskara is a bit too difficult for me though!

Anyway, San Sebastian is a beautiful town. We wandered along the seafront and it was so spectacular to be between the sea and the mountains, incredibly breathtaking. The weather was glorious, around 25 degrees in the middle of November and the town is full of so much character. We walked
round to the harbour and saw all the fishing boats and into the bay. Mum and Dad even went paddling, haha, but now as I'm fully acclimatised to the weather in the south of France it was a bit too cold for me ;) After a lot of walking we decided to stop for a bit to eat at a tapas bar - and it was slightly different to what I was used to working in La Tasca for many years - I've got to say though, I think La Tasca's patatas bravas is better though - less mayonnaise! It dawned on me how much Spanish I seem to have forgotten though, or suppressed to make way for French - let's hope it comes back to me by the time I have to go to Mexico!

That's it for today! xo

(sorry if the format is all screwed up, pictures seem to mess with my blog entries!)
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Visit to the Poitou-Charentes

13:31 | by Danielle
This week in France is Toussaints, basically half term... yippeee! When I realised I had a week off, I wasn't sure what to do with myself, although I really, really would have liked to go home, I decided to stay here, for fear that I would undo all the good homesickness related work that I have done! So, as a type of compromise, I decided to go visit my Grandad who lives n
ear Confolens in the Charente region, a sort of home from home! So off Bec and I travelled, via first cl
ass on the TGV (très impressionnant, it has to be said) to Angoulême. We were greeted by my Grand
ad and he d

rove us back to his house - oh, how I have missed the luxury of being driven in a car and not relying on public transport! We stopped at the Resistance Memorial at Chasseneuil (I'm bit of a history geek) and took some photos! The F
rench are very proud o
f their Resistance during the Occuption in the Second World War and it really is a fitting tribute.

Saturday evening we had a scrummy Chinese meal in St. Junien (real, hot food... ahh) and I went to bed very full, happy and content!


Sunday, we went out for lunch and had a 4 course roast dinner, cooked by English people, and it was simply divine. It's not until
you eat these foods


again that you realise how much you do actually miss them... and I don't even have roast dinners at home that often! Later that afternoon, we visited the Lacs de la Haute Charante, stopped at Chabanais by the Vienne river

s to say, lots of photo ops!, needles

I have visited my Grandparents a few times in France but on Monday we visited somewhere I have never been before... Vallée des singes! It
's a monkey park and some of the monkeys can run around your feet and jump from tree to tree above your head, it really was a great day. It had a bit of an educational twist
too when we listened to the anima
l keepers talk about the monkeys etc, who said learning can't be fun? ;) Some of the little monkeys were so cute, I have loads more photos on facebook - so take a look there if you fancy it!

On the Tuesday, we visited Oradour-sur-Glane, which is a martyr village. As I said earlier, I am quite interested in history and the story of Oradour is so sad and tragic that it stays with you for a very long time. If you want to know more, take a loo
k on the wikipedia page, it
explains it there better than I can. The village has been left how it was when over 600 of its residents were massacred by the Waffen SS. It really is very interesting but terribly sad. I have visited
before, but wanted to go back and visit the exposition there. Poor Bec probably didn't realise she was coming for a history lesson when she said she'd like to come with me!

And today I returned back to Pau, having enjoyed myself immensely! Not sure what my plans are for the rest of the holidays but since my Erasmus grant is expected within the next few days, perhaps a bit of shopping... Hurrah!

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7 weeks in...

08:43 | by Danielle
Instead of me rambling along for a few hundred words, I thought I'd do a little picture post :)

Sunrise over the Pyrenees
































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La Vie Paloise

07:19 | by Danielle

I'm now only two days shy of being here a whole month. I can't believe how quickly the time has flown. It has been a trying month at times, quite stressful and frustrating. It's also surprised me of how much a culture shock it was to move from England to France. I always had the view that it would be quite simple (apart from la langue, bien sur), considering that France is so close to us, it's a European country that I have visited on numerous occasions etc. But really, it is a completely different way of life. It's so strange to come to live in a town where nothing is open on a Sunday. We have spent the majority of our Sundays sitting in McDonalds because there is really not much else to do. I've also sincerely struggled with the amount of time it takes to get anything done! Like I said, I have been here nearly a month and still not sorted all my paperwork. I have to tell myself to take a deep breath and calm down.

I do feel quite settled here though. Although I'm having trouble meeting French people and speaking French, I don't feel as homesick as I thought I would. I think it's helped having met people that I get on well with, they've almost become my little family here. I feel I am understanding people a lot more but I still need to get over this confidence thing of not speaking French. It's making me feel very frustrated. I want to improve but I'm finding it so difficult.

So, over the next few weeks, my goals are to obviously speak more French and to take more photos!
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Bonjour a tous!

11:32 | by Danielle
So I'm here, in France! I have been here just under two weeks now and the whole experience has been quite overwhelming! I'm starting to get used to the French way of life (in other words, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork) and although I don't feel like my speaking has improved I'm finding that I understand people a little better. It's still early days though so I'm not going too hard on myself!

So, a bit about Pau and the university here. Firstly, I can see the Pyrenees from my university residence window, and in my opinion, I personally think that is really awesome. The Boulevard des Pyrenees truly offers some spectacular views of the mountains and I'm taken aback everytime I go down there... I can't believe I'm living by the moutains! Pau itself is a really nice city/town (? I'm not quite sure which it is yet) and the locals seem very friendly. My accommodation is nice, very basic but it's clean and tidy so I can't complain. The only downside is the lack of the internet, it's driving me insane.. I am currently stealing a connection from the public hotspot but it's so unreliable.. I can't wait for our super-fast fibre optic broadband to be installed in a couple of weeks!

Classes start on Monday although we haven't picked any modules yet... I'm going to take this as standard, haha. I'm going to watch my friends white water raft tomorrow at the Stade d'eaux-vivres (apparently the Olympic kayak-canoeing champion lives in Pau) and I'm going to attempt to surf on Saturday at Anglet, if that fails I will be basking in the beautiful Pays Basque sun.... ahhh!

Will try and upload some pictures soon!
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