Where on Earth is Imogen? : September 2013

28 September 2013

XMU International Music Festival and meeting Destiny

Last night was Xiamen University's International Music Festival and a chance to meet our Chinese language partners for the first time. On Tuesday a sheet was passed around in class for us to sign up for a language partner in order to practise Chinese and help them with their English. Destiny, my language partner, had text me on Thursday evening to introduce herself and we had a short conversation via text in Chinese and English before agreeing to see each other at the end and me adding her on 微信(WeChat).

Before going along to the festival which took place outside the still unfinished library by the lake as there are plenty of steps there for people to sit on, I met Hilary's language partner and friend as she'd been a bit more organised wanting to meet before the event so that they could find each other more easily! They sat and watched us eat dinner in the canteen while chatting away in Chinese as they didn't feel confident speaking English. Robert, our Swedish friend, joined us and the girls decided that he looked like Harry Potter due to his dark her and glasses and proceeded to call him 哈利波特 hālì bōtè (Harry Potter) for the rest of the evening, much to Robert's annoyance!

We then walked down to the venue and I texted Destiny to tell her I arrived. While I waited for her to find me I got handed a couple of these:

They were plastic hands with flashing lights that clapped when you shook them. Was quite cool seeing them dotted about the crowds of people! Destiny managed to find me (she knew what I looked like from my 微信profile picture) and lead me away to meet her friends. They asked me if I could speak in Chinese with them to which I said was fine but that sometimes I wouldn't understand! We chatted about where I was from, what I studied, hobbies etc. Even managed to speak a little bit in French and Spanish to those who were learning! Unfortunately they either didn't seem to understand or didn't reply. We sat down near the top of the steps to the library to watch the show.

The view of the stage from where we were sitting

The event soon commenced displaying a variety of acts. There was Chinese dancing, women in pretty dresses playing the 琵琶 pípá (traditional Chinese instrument like a lute), Kungfu and Chinese singing, Indian dancing (I think it was Indian anyway), a very bendy Indian guy arranging himself into a range of shapes, African dancing, Ukrainian dancing and singing, street dance and, of course, Gangnam Style. The show was hosted by a Chinese girl in a long dress and heels and an American guy who spoke amazing Chinese wearing a sparkly, very Chinese-looking, suit.

Chinese dancers at the start of the festival. They were very similar to the ones at the opening ceremony of University of Southampton day on the main campus in March, perhaps they were the same ones?

Our hosts for the evening

Girls playing the Pípá

The end of the kungfu/taichi routine

Super bendy Indian guy

Ukrainian singer and dancers

African dancers and drummers

Indian (?) dancers

Chinese rock band

After the last photo Destiny dragged me by the hand to go down to just in front of the stage and join a large conga line. It was a lot of fun and the song that was playing gave us directions "left, left, right, right" and then I'm not entirely sure what it said but everyone jumped forward and backward before doing two jumps forward meaning that we did actually get somewhere! Afterwards we stayed down and jumped up and down to the rock band before eventually going back up the steps to join Destiny's friends who had been looking after our stuff. The event ended soon afterwards and Destiny left with her friends while I rejoined Hilary, Robert, Hilary's language partner and friends.

Robert, me, Hilary, Hilary's language partner (on the right) and her friends outside the library

It was a fun evening and great to meet some Chinese people and practise speaking Chines. Destiny's told me that if I need anything, she can help. This includes getting the health certificate I need for using the pool on campus as well as any problems I may have. She and her friends are also keen to take me to KTV (Karaoke)! Hopefully I'll get to meet up with them soon.

27 September 2013

Chinese classes

Last Monday (my second full day here) those who had studied Chinese before had to do a test in order for the university to place them in a suitable class. We turned up to the Overseas Education College, a 15 minute walk/7 minute cycle away from our dormitories, at 9am and were split into different rooms.

The first part of the assessment was an oral test. We all waited around while one person at a time went to talk to a teacher, there were one or two teachers per room. While we were waiting we were given a form to fill in giving basic info such as name, nationality and student number as well as how many years we'd studied Chinese and where. There was no order to the waiting, just whoever barged their way through to the teach first, so I ended up waiting quite a while before I could go and talk to her. The teacher glanced at my form and asked me some questions about it. She then asked if it was my first time in China which meant telling her that I was born in Hong Kong and lived there for the first 7 years of my life, as well as visiting Beijing, Xi 'an, Nanjing, Suzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Macau. She asked me if I'd learnt any Chinese whilst living in Hong Kong and I said yes but that I don't remember much as I was so young!

After this she gave me a short text to read to check my knowledge of characters. Unfortunately, I've never been very confident with speaking foreign languages so when I was 80% sure I knew the pronunciation of a character, I still didn't say it and she had to tell me what it was. The text was about a foreigner and his struggles with Chinese life including finding it difficult to wake up for 8am classes (I thought 9ams were bad enough!) and finding Chinese greetings strange. The Chinese don't greet people by asking "How are you?" as we would in English, instead they ask things like "Have you eaten yet?" "Where are you going?" "What are you doing?" etc. To a westerner this may be seen as a bit intrusive and the guy in the text got a bit bothered by it, the teacher asked me if these greetings made me angry and I told her that they didn't. What's wrong with people being friendly? She then filled in the bottom of my form and told me that for someone who had only studied Chinese for two years, my level was quite good which was nice of her!

Next was the written test. I went along to another room and gave the teacher there my slip of paper and got a question paper and answer sheet in return. This test was very difficult. It was a multiple choice test filling in the gaps in a sentence. I found that sometimes I could understand all of the characters but still not know what to put in the gap! Different combinations of Chinese characters lead to different meanings so even though you may know the characters that make up a word, you may not know what the word actually means. I ended up guessing most of it and it seems that a lot of other people did the same having spoken to them afterwards.

Two days later the class lists and timetables were published on one notice board in a dark corridor. Everyone crowded around trying to search for their name, made all the more difficult by the fact that it was Chinese names on the list rather than English ones! I resorted to looking at the nationality column instead as there aren't that many 英国人(British people) here. After minutes of struggling my way through to the board and searching for my Chinese name, I finally found it on a class list and went to the room listed at the top to meet my teacher. It turned out that they'd put all 4 Southampton MFL students together in the same class which meant that I definitely knew people! After very briefly meeting the teacher we went to buy textbooks. The textbooks for our class were called Developing Chinese Elementary (II). We had to buy a general textbook, a listening one (including answer book) and an oral one, adding up to 185元（about £19). Excited at getting into studying Chinese again after a few months, I opened the first page. The first thing on the vocab list was 入乡随俗（when in Rome... ). The first thing on the vocab list in Nanjing last summer was also 入乡随俗so this bothered me a bit knowing that I had studied it before.

Later on I read through the rest of the vocab list; I knew 24 out of the 28 supposedly new words and expressions which was not a good sign. Normally I'll know maybe 2 or 3 of the words on a new vocab list! I decided to try out the class anyway on Monday to see if it would be worth moving up and the timetable had Fridays off which is great! Unfortunately I was right about the classes not being challenging enough so I've now bought a whole new set of textbooks and moved to the next class up. Bye bye Fridays off! At the moment we have Friday classes on Sunday to make up for missed classes because of the holiday this week (Chinese don't seem to understand the concept of a holiday?) which means 8am Chinese oral class this Sunday! I don't blame them for my class placement though as it must be hard to place so many people at the right level and most people do seem to be happy in the classes they've been placed in. I could have stayed in the one I was put in but fancied more of a challenge. I am very happy with my new class and it's the same on as my room mate, Hilary, so we can study together and make sure we both get up in the morning!

The list for the option classes has just come out so I'll try some of those in the next few weeks. The one I most like the sound of is 唱歌学汉语(Learning Chinese through song) but other options include Chinese traditional medicine, calligraphy and Kungfu.

My large collection of new textbooks!

26 September 2013

So much to organise!

As with studying abroad in any foreign country, there's been plenty for me to organise here. As soon as I arrived I was taken to registration where I seemed to have to complete and sign a lot of forms, queue up for various desks, get given various documents and photocopy my passport photo page and visa page, all whilst feeling utterly exhausted and disgusting after a long journey and struggling to understand Chinese having not done anything since my exam in June. The first desk I went to was where I got my e-card. Xiamen University has a system in which every student has a card they can put money on to pay for food in the canteen, buying things in the shops and having a hot shower (we have to put the card in a machine before the shower, take it out while showering, and then put it back in so that it charges us for the amount of hot water we use). They'd somehow managed to put the wrong name on my card which caused some confusion! Instead of POSFORD I have POCINKA on my card, it's my student number though. At first I thought they'd just completely spelt my name wrong but I have since found out that this person does actually exist and that they are also a scholarship student. Maybe they have my name on their card? Maybe it would have been better if I'd given them my Chinese name but I like to change them and am now on my third one. At another desk I was given a passport-like student card which seems to be how they do them in China, my one in Nanjing last summer was similar.

POCINKA e-card and front of student card

Front of e-card with picture of the main campus (even though we're on the new one) and inside of my student card

After that I was finally allowed to go to my room, I already mentioned in a previous post how I found out who my roommate was! I was so tired that it didn't matter that there weren't any sheets on the bed or that I had to have a cold shower as I didn't have any money on my card yet, I slept soundly lying on my towel and using a hoodie as a pillow on top of my mattress still wrapped in plastic! The next day I bought sheets, a pillow and towels from the 超市（supermarket) though, you can get most of the basics there which is handy as it's on campus. I've also bought a bike (picture to follow) for about £35 including lock and basket. This campus is so big that it's almost necessary to have a bike to get around! I also got my phone and phone/internet contract that day (see last post).

Before that I got the shuttle bus to Bank of China to set up my Chinese bank account which is connected to the e-card and is the account into which my scholarship will be paid so is very important! To set it up I had to have a Chinese phone number which I got for free at the bank before I even had a Chinese phone or contract. Setting the account up was fairly easy as in China you just fill in a form and they give you the card the same day. Seeing as I'm a scholarship student I didn't bother putting much money into the account, just £2.50 which is the minimum, but am having to put more and more into it for my e-card as scholarship money's not coming through until mid October. I looked into transferring money into it from my HSBC account but they won't transfer to China. I suppose I'll just have to get a load of cash out of that and put it into my Bank of China account.

Last Tuesday I had to go to the Xiamen Quarantine Bureau to get my health examination done. This is one of the requirements for obtaining the residence visa to stay in China for more than 6 months. I had tried to get this done in the UK but doing it here turned out much easier, simpler and cheaper. We got on a bus from campus to the hospital where we had to fill in a form and provide three photos before a series of tests: blood (HIV and Syphilis), urine, blood pressure, eyesight, ECG, ultra-sound (even for males) and chest x-ray. Hilary (my room mate) and I made sure we filled the forms in quickly and were the first to go through. She'd managed to get someone to write all the different room numbers down which was really useful. The whole process probably took about an hour and then we were free to eat! We hadn't been allowed to eat anything that morning or after 9pm the night before so were quite hungry. We went to the first restaurant we could find despite the health warning on the wall! All restaurants in Xiamen have to display their hygiene rating A, B or C. So far the best I've eaten at is a B and apparently As are quite rare! I picked up my health certificate from an office in the Overseas Education College on Monday and was happy to find out that I didn't have any horrible diseases!

That guy does not look too happy but we thought the food was tasty!

My health certificate with a load of information about me including blood type, height, weight and results of all the tests

This morning I went to apply for my residence permit. A bus left from campus at 8:30am to take us to the police station. We had to bring our passport, copies of passport, visa and admission notice, health forms, accommodation form and JW202 visa form. When we arrived we were led to a room where we had to have our picture taken. They had lots of rules about how the photo should be. People with long hair had to tie it up so that the whole face could be seen, they had a box of elastic bands on the table in case people needed them, and if you were wearing a white t-shirt you had to put on a rather stylish dark purple and black striped men's shirt. After that the photographer put a sticker on our residence permit form and we had to queue up to hand all the documents in along with our passports. Residence permits take 2-3 weeks to process so I'll have to wait a while to get my passport back along with permit to stay in the country.

I think I'm pretty much up-to-date on everything I need to do now so am quite proud of myself. Looking forward to settling into a normal routine!

ADVICE FOR ANYONE GOING TO STUDY IN CHINA: Bring plenty of passport photos with you, they seem to want them for everything. I've used 7 so far!

Now that I have internet... what should I write?

I mentioned in my last post that it took a while to sort out an internet connection in my room which is why I haven't been posting much since I've been here. I do finally have it now so this is a post explaining why it took so long before I gradually update you on everything that's been happening in 厦门（Xiamen). Really not sure where to start as it already feels like I've been here for months! If there's anything that anyone particularly wants to know about then feel free to ask in the comments section. I've already had a request for some photos of the campus so I'll try to do that soon!

The way it works is that internet is not provided with the dormitories, you have to buy a phone contract and it's included in that. The day after I arrived I went to sort this out. I've got a year long phone contract with China mobile costing roughly £8 a month with a phone (I chose a Samsung Galaxy Trend II which meant I had to pay an extra £33 on top of the contract as it was a better phone than the Lenovo or Coolpad ones I could have got for free), minutes, texts, mobile internet and internet for my room. It makes sense to buy a phone in China, particularly if your phone doesn't display or allow you to input characters, as these things are essential for reading the numerous texts from China Mobile and chatting to your new 中国朋友（Chinese friends) on 微信（Wechat - a Chinese version of Whatsapp that everyone seems to use here!).

I bought an ethernet cable from the 超市（supermarket) on campus a few days later and excitedly plugged it into the port behind my desk thinking that I'd done everything I needed to do to get an internet connection. Unfortunately not. Absolutely nothing happened. I realised that I would have to wait a bit longer to go back to civilization (having an internet connection!). A couple of days later I got excited again at a text from China Mobile. They'd sent me my user name and password for my internet! I tried the internet again but still nothing happened. The other international students all seem to share my frustration with the internet so I knew I wasn't alone. On Sunday I went in to the China Mobile branch on campus to ask when it was going to start working. They added my name to a list of people who needed it setting up which makes me question whether I was on the list in the first place! I got told that a man would come round to set it up in three days.

That evening as I was walking back from the canteen, I got a phonecall from a Chinese man who was saying something about internet. I panicked at having to speak Chinese on the phone and passed it to my friends to speak for me! We told him we'd be back in 5 minutes but when we got there there was no one to be seen. I even texted the guy to tell him I was back in the dormitory but he didn't reply.

I won a "Snails-fan" in a dice game at China Mobile after getting my phone contract!

On Monday I had my first day of classes and, embarrassingly, my phone went off in my second class. I got a friend whose Chinese is considerably better than mine to call the number back (China Mobile again) as well as ringing the guy from the night before on mine and another friend's phone until he agreed to set up both our internets that evening. Several phonecalls and texts later, after the guy had come and fiddled with some cables on the ground floor of the dormitories and set it up on our laptops, we both had internet!

They offered me an umbrella instead but snail fan definitely wins! (not that we need it as we usually keep our window open to let the breeze in and there's air-con if we want to use it)

Since then I've been too busy catching up on emails and everyone else's blogs as well as generally being busy with life here that I haven't had time to post. I hope you'll all forgive me!

22 September 2013

I did make it to China in case you were wondering....

Apologies for it being so long since I last posted. I *still* don't have internet in my room so I'm writing this using my phone as a router. Hopefully once I've got internet sorted I'll be posting more regularly.

The first week in Xiamen has been very long, there has been so much to do! The rest of my journey went fine apart from a one hour delay for my last flight from Guangzhou to Xiamen. I was met by the university's driver at the airport along with a group of other international students who had had to wait for my flight to get in! I felt so bad for them but it really wasn't my fault. We went straight from the airport to Xiang'an campus and to the registration procedure. There were so many forms to fill in and different desks to go to that it was quite overwhelming after the 25 hours of travelling! After about 3 hours of admin we were told we could finally go to our dormitories and complete the rest of the registration the next day. I'd been chatting to a girl at the registration and we were standing in the queue together when we went to find out what room we were in. As scholarship students is was compulsory that we were in a shared room.

"I wonder how they allocate the rooms?"

"Wouldn't it be funny if they just did it on the order of people in the queue?"

(We looked down when the guy was writing and saw that we'd been put in the same box)

"I guess we're room mates!"

Her name is Hilary-Ann and she's from Delaware in the US (has to always explain where this is when she first meets people!). She also studies French, Spanish and Chinese like me so that's a nice coincidence!

I'm not entirely sure how much internet I've got with my phone contract so think I'll leave this post here. Will hopefully post again soon with photos and more about my first week!

UPDATE: I was lucky enough to get a window seat on my flight from Manchester to Amsterdam so here are some shots of the start of my journey!

13 September 2013

On my way to China!

So this is it. I'm sitting around in the departure lounge waiting for the first of my three flights. Despite struggling with heavy luggage, things have gone smoothly so far. My dad drove me to the airport and stayed with me through check-in until I had to go to security and he wasn't allowed through. My suitcase ended up weighing 24.5kg but they allowed it through even though my allowance was 23kg. I'm taking full advantage of my hand baggage allowance as well by bringing a bag and accessory (laptop bag) also up to the maximum allowance of 12kg. I've also got a coat with the pockets stuffed with clothes (they don't weigh coats). It's not easy packing to move away for 9 months!
It was a bit difficult getting my laptop out at security and ended up dropping my passport and boarding cards more than once but the girl behind me in the queue helped as she'd been on an Erasmus year herself and knew what it was like.
Hopefully the journey continues to go well but there's still a very long way to go!

Last night at home/Fraser's early birthday/My early Christmas!

Tonight is my last night at home, sleeping in my own bed, until at least the end of June next year. My family seem to have mixed feelings about me going - wanting to support me but not wanting me to be gone so long at the same time! For these reasons my mum organised a nice family meal as it is the last time we'll be together for a while. My 18-year-old brother, Fraser, is off to Mallorca for three months on Tuesday to begin his gap year so there will soon only be three people living in our house.

One of the toughest things about me being away is that I will be missing a family Christmas this year for the first time in my life. My mum suggested doing Christmas dinner for my last night but ended up doing a normal traditional English roast instead (with rice as well to make it a bit more oriental! I've never been much of a fan of potatoes). I haven't owned a camera for about 9 years so we've been discussing how I'd need one and it was decided that my parents would make it an early Christmas present. However. my mum also surprised me with a few smaller presents to be unwrapped on Christmas day!

Fraser's birthday is in October so we decided to celebrate that tonight too whilst we were all still together, birthday cake and everything! He was also treated to a camera, but as a birthday present rather than a Christmas one, so that he can document his time in Mallorca and other destinations on his gap year. You can follow his blog at fraserontour.blogspot.com

My flight to Amsterdam leaves at 9:15am so I'll be off to Manchester Airport in a few hours. After that first flight I'll fly to Guangzhou and, finally, Xiamen. I might do a short post from the airport but otherwise the next one will, hopefully, be from China!

Fraser with his birthday cake (a month and 9 days early)

Three siblings (Ethan, Fraser and I)

My Christmas presents on top of my suitcase

8 September 2013

China preparations: Travel vaccinations and airport pickup

After getting nowhere with getting my health check done in the UK, I decided that, after being made to re-register at the GP I was at for 10 years before Southampton, I may as well look into getting some travel vaccines done. Although I've travelled to China before, I've never bothered with any vaccinations. The Confucius Institute suggested we got them done before the trip at Easter but as everything was so last-minute, there simply wasn't time.

I filled in a travel form stating where it was I was going and how long for and handed it to the receptionist. She told me that the nurse would look at the form, work out which jabs I needed and that they would phone me to organise and appointment for the travel clinic which takes place every Friday. I waited and waited but never received a phonecall, I realised this on the Friday before we were going to France and knew that I'd need to ring up and enquire to see if I could get an appointment for the Friday when we were back as it was the only Friday I was available due to leaving on Friday the 13th! I spoke to a receptionist on the phone and agreed on an appointment time for Friday 6th. She told me that I would need Hepatitis A (free on the NHS), Hepatitis B (£37.50) and Malaria tablets (she didn't know how much they would cost).

I went off to France and didn't think much more about it until my return. I drove to Marple Bridge for my appointment (I've got car insurance on one of my parents' cars for a week which means I've turned into my brothers' taxi service!) and went straight through to the nurse's room. She asked me if I'd had any travel vaccinations before to which I responded that I didn't think so and I certainly hadn't had any in the last few years. She then turned to her computer and was surprised to see that there were absolutely no records about me on the system! She thought it was particularly strange seeing how long I'd been there before but she simply didn't have any information. The nurse told me that she simply couldn't administer any vaccinations without my records and asked for details of my previous GP, the University Health Service in Southampton, so that she would be able to phone them and get the information she required. Seems like my records have got lost somewhere between the two!

We then chatted for a bit about what vaccinations I would actually need. Recommended for all travellers to China is Hepatitis A. Other vaccines are offered to higher risk people (I come under that heading as I'm going to be there for a long period of time) include Hepatitis B, Typhoid and Malaria tablets. We decided that if I were to have any of those it would be Hepatitis B as the risk of Typhoid and Malaria is considerably lower as well as there being a shortage of the Typhoid vaccine. However, Hepatitis B is a course of three injections, £37.50 per injection, and it wouldn't be possible for me to get it done with the limited time I have before I leave. The conclusion of our discussion was that if she could get hold of Southampton and find out about my details, she would give me the Hepatitis A vaccine later that day.

I went off to pick my brother up from school and phoned the GP when I got home to see if the nurse had left a message for me as she said she was going to do. The receptionist I spoke to this time told me that she'd managed to speak to University Health Service and that the vaccine was going ahead. I brought Ethan with me in the car as there wouldn't be time to return home before taking him to his swimming lesson, and went back to the GP. Ethan wandered around Marple Bridge and sat around in the waiting area while I had it done. The nurse asked me if I was ok with needles and wasn't going to faint on her (yes, don't worry) and the injection went smoothly. She then gave me an information sheet about the vaccine and asked that I waited 10-15 minutes before leaving the surgery. The sheet gave information about the virus, the vaccine and the side effects that are "relatively uncommon" and "last no more than a day or two". It seems that I am unlucky as on Friday my arm was hurting and I felt a bit queasy. Now the queasiness had gone but the pain's still there! Hopefully it'll go soon. If I get a booster in 12 months time it'll last for 20 years so it's probably worth having. My mum got out my baby book with my baby vaccinations in later that evening and we found out that I'd had Hepatitis B as a baby in Hong Kong so maybe I'll still have some protection from it anyway?

On Wednesday I emailed Xiamen University to request airport pickup, following my mum's advice. After three flights and waiting around inbetween, I probably will be very tired and not wishing to deal with a taxi driver who could potentially not understand me, take me to the wrong place, charge me extra or just refuse to take me to the new campus as it's not in the main town. When I went to Nanjing last summer we weren't offered a similar service so it was a good thing I'd got someone on the plane to write the address out in Chinese characters for me and had plenty of money for a taxi. The taxi driver chatted away in Chinese for most of the hour-long journey and at the time my level of Chinese was so basic that I didn't even know how to say "I don't understand!". He seemed to give me a bit of a tour of Nanjing before taking me to the university hotel as well, the taxi I got to the airport on the way back was quite significantly cheaper! I filled in a form stating my name and flight details and attached it to an email, immediately receiving an automated response that it would be replied to within 3 working days. Thankfully I got a response and the driver should be waiting for me when I arrive on Saturday.

It still hasn't quite sunk in that this is happening, this time next week I'll have been there for more than 24 hours!

7 September 2013

Morgat, Bretagne

This is probably the longest I've gone without writing a post but whilst away in France it wasn't very easy to get internet access and since getting back home at about 2am on Wednesday morning having got the ferry from Roscoff to Plymouth arriving at 8pm and sat in the car for hours on our way back north, I just haven't got round to it!

I had a nice, relaxing time in France with my family though. Nothing too exciting - lots of getting up late, going to the beach, going to the pool and playing games in the evenings - but it was nice to spend time with my parents and youngest brother. We tended to get up late and have a brunch-type meal before heading to the beach either in the car or cycling as we brought three bikes with us. The reason we didn't bother taking four was that the cycle rack on the back of the car only holds three meaning that one bike would have to be inside, and that someone has to drive with the dog as they haven't invented a bike a dog can ride (yet! Did anyone else see the video about them teaching dogs to drive cars a while ago?). On the beach Ethan told me off for being "lazy" when I would say I was just relaxing, lying down sunbathing, reading a French magazine or revising Chinese characters. He and dad went bodyboarding in the sea most days despite how cold the water was, I did go in twice though. My parents and brother also spent a lot of time entertaining Roxy, the dog, by throwing a frisbee, kicking a ball or throwing her in the sea (not sure she enjoyed that as much) but she also found plenty of dogs to play with on the beach. Ethan set up a games tournament which took place almost every evening after dinner meaning that at times the games, including Scrabble, Hedbanz, Banagrams (another word game) and Analyze me! (a game testing how much we know each other), got very competitive between us, I finished second behind Mum in the end. I think the only night we didn't play games was when we went out to our usual pizzeria (not very French I know) but we had a nice meal

I probably could have practised my French a bit more. I only really spoke French four times - booking the vet appointment for my family's dog so that she would be allowed back into the UK, ordering food and drink at the restaurant posting postcards at the post office and being chatted up by a French guy on the beach! Dogs are required to have a vet appointment less than 5 days and more than 24 hours before returning to the UK to get a worming tablet (in Roxy's case an injection as she vomited the first tablet out and refused to have another one) and a stamp from the vet to say that the animal is in good health. Booking the appointment went smoothly, even slipped a couple of subjunctives in, but when I went along with my mum and Roxy for the actual appointment, the vet insisted on speaking English. In the restaurant I did speak more complicated French than "Un pizza margherita s'il vous plait" asking if we could have a starter as a side dish and discussing our options with the waiter when they only had one tiramisu left for dessert. Posting poscards barely counts as speaking French as that conversation went "Bonjour, je voudrais envoyer ces trois cartes postales a l'Angleterre s'il vous plait" but the woman was barely listening to me, it was quite obvious what I wanted! The beach conversation was probably the most amusing. I'd seen this guy looking across at me as I was sitting on the beach and when I went to see how cold the sea was, he slyly followed a stood next to me - "Il fait froid, non?" "Ouii" - was how the conversation began talking about the water. It went on to include him asking if I spoke French, I said I spoke a bit but was rusty as I'd spent over two months talking Spanish, and me pointing out that my Dad was not very far away. The conversation fizzled out and I went for a bit of a swim before bodyboarding and he left the beach quite quickly! Despite my lack of conversation practice, I did make sure I read some French magazines and watched French TV. There was a game show I particularly enjoyed as I knew the answers to more than hald the questions!

We didn't take that many photos this time as we go there a lot but here are a selection of ones taken in the past

A maze that Ethan enjoys, makes a change from the beach!

Camaret-sur-Mer - a small town also on the Crozon peninsula

Beautiful scenery

The marina in Morgat

Goulien beach

Town beach - Morgat

Kayaking in 2007. We went kayaking again this holiday - Ethan and Dad in a double, me in a single - but unfortunately Mum couldn't find us to take photos!