Today has been a fuuuuun day :) One of those fun, random, adventuring days. I went to Lausanne with one of the other language assistants, and it is a beautiful city. It's right by Lake Geneva so after wandering around for a bit we went down to the lake and decided to get a boat to France!! Just cos we could. We went over to Thonon-les-Bains, grabbed an ice-cream, then got on a bus to Evian!! It was so exciting, and an absolutely beautiful place. There was a very exciting moment when we both realised we had evian bottles with us too, haha. The views over the lake were amazing, and the mountains in the background were pretty stunning. We spent about an hour there and then got on a boat back, and on the way we witnessed an amazing sunset, it was just so picturesque - mountains, water, pretty sky... It has been really hot and sunny today too, which just added to the greatness of the day. Can't believe it's practically October and it's still T-shirt weather!

Last Friday we went down to Neuchatel for 'la fete des vendanges' which is basically a weekend-long party! It was lots of fun, tons of people, cool music, dancing in the street etc. Stayed overnight at a friend's and then on Saturday walked around the town and by the lake - it's also a very pretty, picturesque town.

Only two more teaching days then it's holidays, woo!! I've been covering some lessons at a different school this week - it's been fun so far, basically I just have to supervise while they work then go round correcting stuff. I've gained another student for private lessons too so am giving my first lesson to her on Friday.

I'm looking forward to the holidays, hoping to do lots more travelling and sightseeing :)

Salut tout le monde!

In true English fashion I'm going to begin by talking about the weather... it seems to have settled into this weird pattern of being really foggy and dull in the morning then clearing around lunchtime and being really sunny in the afternoon. It was really warm this afternoon, we went for a lovely walk along part of the 'Planetenweg' which is a path with models of the planets spaced out proportionately along it. It was so quiet and peaceful and there was really beautiful scenery.

On Monday I gave my first private lesson to two of my students and it went really well :) I really enjoyed it, it was great having students who actually want to learn and who I don't have to keep telling to shut up! School has been going well too this week, I'm starting to get to know the students and remember their names now which I think helps. On Monday I took some British food in for them to try, to which there were mixed reactions! The Cadbury's chocolate generally went down well (apart from one guy who said it tasted "floury"?!) but they didn't go for the marmite so much!

Well today was an easy day at school - my two classes were doing a mock listening exam so all I had to do was press play on the CD and let them get on with it :) It was a really really hard test though, I felt very sorry for them as there was one question that I wasn't even sure of the answer so how they managed to do it I don't know! I've acquired a new nickname at school; one of the students has decided to call me Mary Poppins as it sounds quite like my name!

Last night I went back to the squash club and am feeling much less dead than after last time :) There were fewer press-ups which I think helped! Someone gave me some one on one coaching and by the end of the night there was definite improvement.

Yesterday I took the train for the first time in Switzerland, it was very exciting! I just went for a little trip to Porrentruy which is a nearby town where the other language assistants are all working. There was amazing scenery on the way and the town is very quaint (see above photo). I saw the school where there others teach, it's amazing! So much nicer than where I am! I met one of the English teachers there and he invited me to go over see them sometime, not sure if he meant to teach or just to meet the teachers but either way that'll be cool.

Had a very nice weekend, it was great to be well enough to actually do stuff! Saturday night the other assistants came round to our flat for dinner and a lovely evening was had. On Sunday we went to a little town called Laufen. It was beautiful weather, very hot and sunny. We had a wander around and a picnic and also went to a cafe for a drink and ice-cream where we were served by a grumpy lady who didn't like us cos we didn't speak Swiss German! She was really friendly to the couple sitting at the next table but really rude to us, grr. Sunday evening I went to church which was cool, everyone was very friendly and I knew all the songs cos they were translated from English!

Very funny moment in class today that I felt I should share...

So the students were doing an activity in pairs where they had to do a fake interview with a famous British person; one person asked questions and the other answered pretending to be the famous person. This was during an interview with the Queen:

Interviewer: What do you like to buy with your money?
Queen: Jewellry, CDs...
I: What kind of music do you like?
Q: punk, metal...
I: You don't like Mozart?
Q: No I don't like Mozart.
I: But when you go to balls you have to dance to Mozart?
Q: Yes but I take my iPod with me so I can listen to metal.

Haha, comedy genius!

Apologies for the lack of blogging, I haven't really had anything to say! I've been a bit ill the last few days so just spent most of my time in the flat reading or watching DVDs, boring I know, but feeling better now so can do stuff again!

School is going well, I've seen all of my classes at least once now - there are 14 different groups in total! That's a lot of names to remember... that part is going less well. I've mostly been doing introduction lessons, which has basically involved repeating facts about myself lots and lots and lots of times. I think my favourite question asked by a student was 'What's your favourite word?' cos it meant I got to bring the word 'bamboozled' into the lesson!

This evening Christina and I went along to a French class to try it out but it turns out it's way below our level. We had to do a test assessment and I scored 100%!! Hooray! I was very proud, I think I can call myself a native speaker now. The woman there told us about another class that might be more suitable so we're going to try that out to see if we're not too good for that one too.

Our flat now finally has a fully functioning living room :) the lovely yellow sofa was delivered last week and we also have a table to put the TV on and a little coffee table etc. We went on a couple of shopping trips and got stuff like a kettle and toaster too so we're fully equipped.

Just got back from playing squash tonight, at a proper club! It was fun but very tiring and pretty challenging too as I've never done any coaching or training before. To begin with we did some drills and I was absolutely rubbish! But I definitely saw improvement over the evening and by the time we came to play matches I was doing okay. Think I'm going to go every week so hopefully be the end of the year I'll be a pro!

Today was my first proper day in school, well I saw proper day, I only had two lessons! They were both fine, I basically just introduced myself and got the students to introduce themselves. I can't believe how sporty they all are, I don't think there was a single student who doesn't play at least one sport. I think I offended two boys by saying I preferred Man City over Man United, oh well! Tomorrow I start school at 7.50am!!!! I thought 8.15am in Belgium was bad enough...I'm not going to be awake enough to have conversations at that time in the morning!!

Today I bought a train pass so I now get half fare on all trains before 7pm and free travel after 7pm :) (and not it's not because I look like a teenager...) So I'm all ready to travel now! We have a two week holiday at the start of October (!!) so I'm planning to do lotsa travelling then.

Had a conversation with a lovely old lady today. I was sitting on a bench and she came and sat next to me and started chatting about the weather (see, it's not just us English...it was stupidly hot today though). To be honest I didn't understand half of what she was saying as she had quite an accent but the bits I did understand were very interesting, for example she told me that when she was little they had to ski to school! She also talked lots about the goats on her daughter's farm in France...