The Beginning

So I finally made it -the Year Abroad, can’t really believe that! I’ve got somewhere to live, a French bank account, a French mobile phone, a job in a school… I’m definitely ‘living’ in France. And so far so good :) I’ve got a room in an apartment which is joined on to another school to the one I’ll be working at. It’s just me and another English assistant at the moment, there seems to have been some confusion over assistants coming from other countries, so it might just be us two all year, but that’s ok. We have a shower each, plenty of space, not much rent, so it’s good. - Well, apart from the lack of internet, but that should soon be sorted we hope. (I’m really sorry about my delay in writing anything here, thanks for the messages I had from so many of you.) Oh, and we did get locked out of the school grounds last week…had to climb over the 6ft fence…but a key is being sorted now.

I’ve been going into my school for a week now, mostly just observing lessons, but it’s good to find my feet. I’ll be teaching there for the rest of the year, so I’m hoping to get well settled in. The staff are really welcoming, and the school has a nice atmosphere. There are about 550 kids, aged between 15-18, and generally, they’re nice enough. (You can’t really call teenagers nice can you?) I have to say that the canteen is incredible! So much good food, I was really lost, couldn’t quite believe that I could have four courses having paid just under 3€. And everyone eats that much too! (Sorry, I know reading about food isn’t that interesting, I’ll stop now).

The town of Montbéliard is beautiful in my opinion (that's were I'm living). There is a château (castle - see photo above), and a park that I walk through to get to the centre of town, which is lovely. It’s not a very big place, population of about 25,000, but there seems to be plenty of clubs to join. I’ve even found a church to go to on Sunday, and a GBU (French for CU) which is linked to the University here.

It’s hard to fit one and a half weeks into a few hundred words, so I’ll being updating some other things a bit sooner I hope.

With love from France x