My new favourite thing #2 (that's number 2, not hashtag 2)

Things I love right now...

1) The Musketeers. This absolutely had to be number 1 on the list, in fact I practically made the list just so I could talk about it. You know when you watch a film or TV show or read a book which is just so amazing it starts to feel like that's real life and your actual life is just a dream? (or maybe you actually have a life, and have no idea what I'm talking about...if so, well done you.) That is literally been my life experience for about 2 weeks now, with Musketeers. I have been becoming steadily more obsessed with this show since series 2 started in January, to the point that before the final episode I stopped measuring time by the days of the week and started referring to times by how far they were from 9pm on Friday night. I think my housemates were just as glad to get to T-1 day as I was by the end of the week! To my eyes, this show has everything you could want from a Friday night series; it's fast-paced, gripping, full of action and with storylines that really keep you on the edge of your seat, yet also has developed, likeable characters (as well as some truly brilliant villains) and real emotion. Add to that the amazing sets and costumes, great acting, incredible fight sequences and some GENIUS one-liners, and you're on to a winner. I'm now re-watching the episodes from series 1 (some for the third or fourth time) and have just ordered series 2 from Amazon, because despite the ridiculously high newly-released price, I just can't wait any longer to re-watch them.

2) cooking, and in particular Rachel Khoo's recipe for tartelettes. Since I've been at uni and now have to fend for myself, I have developed a real love for cooking, which is made worse in the holidays when I have more time/a bigger kitchen/someone else to pay for the ingredients. So far I have made lasagne (which I have attempted before at uni but it didn't go too well, so my Mum showed me how to do it properly!) for my family, and then last week I made butternut squash soup, which was not too difficult but still delicious, and really healthy! I used a Mary Berry recipe...I do love Mary. However my greatest discovery of this holiday has been raspberry and almond tartelettes, from Rachel Khoo's book My Little Paris Kitchen. I halved the recipe and made 4 tarts instead of 6, and added a bit of almond essence on my Mum's advice, but other than that these tarts are really scrummy. Sweet pastry, with an almondy, slightly caramelised filling and raspberries on top; what more could you want in a dessert?

3) writing with a quill and ink. I went to the Jane Austen house museum in Alton last week with my family - I would highly recommend it, the house and gardens have been so well-restored and there's the cutest little tea room opposite it, which has a great menu and a gorgeous little outside seating area - and bought myself a blue quill and a little pot of ink. Well actually I bought the ink from Hobbycraft on the way home because the gift shop didn't have any black, but that's beside the point. Although I must admit it's not as easy as writing with a biro, it's so much more fun and makes your handwriting look AMAZING, and I've been surprised at how long the ink lasts before you need to dip the quill in again. I'm now using it to make my revision notes, which, it's true, is making my mindmaps look a bit 19th Century, but is so far succeeding in encouraging me to actually sit down and do some work, so I'm going to carry on for now.

4) sitting outside with summery drinks. Now that the weather in Britain has finally realised it's springtime (it's April, and for me that means spring...it shouldn't be raining again until September at least) I can actually sit in the garden even in the shade and not be cold, which is so nice after what feels like a winter longer than the one in Narnia (which lasted 100 years for any of you non-Narnia fans, shame on you). Now that I'm at home and it is my Mum's card in use instead of mine after a trip to Sainsbury's, I am also really getting in to summer drinks. My current favourites are anything lemony, so Hooch, 'a sparkling alcoholic brew made with real lemons and natural lemon flavours' and Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Sparkling Sicilian Lemonade. Failing that, I'll just have plain lemon squash, which I make a bit more classy by using the picnic-stye glass bottle my Mum got me. Other classics are Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Sparkling English Elderflower Pressé (the names just get longer and longer) or a fruit cider like Kopparberg, to remind me of my second home in the West Country.

Year abroad - part 1

This is the first in a series of posts documenting the highs, lows and in betweens of my year abroad next year (eek! Still can't quite believe it!). Because I'm studying languages, I'm spending next year on a compulsory year abroad to improve my language and learn about the French culture from the inside. Think of me as an honorary Trojan, a window into the strange and complicated ways of les français. I have just found out that I got my first choice of university, and will therefore be spending around 7 months from this September at Université Rennes 2 in Brittany, northern France, and therefore thought this was as good a time as any to introduce my Frenchy year to my neglected blog!

I have become slightly addicted to YA (that's year abroad, not young adult...that would be weird) blogs in recent months, and can often be found perusing the Internet late at night for titbits of information about all things French; from how to find accommodation, to when to use certain idioms, and how to make the most of what everyone says is one of the most amazing opportunities you will ever have. I also want to document my memories, thoughts and emotions for myself, so that I can look back and remember what the beginning was really like by the time I reach the end!

So. What have I done so far. Well, up until Saturday 4th April 2015, I have...

• been to about 10 million YA talks at my home uni (Exeter) about module selection, the Erasmus grant, language acquisition and intercultural competence (their words, not mine)
• researched and applied for 5 French universities (the others in my top 5 were two in Paris, one in Nantes and one in Grenoble) complete with module choices for each one. This was a bit of a nightmare in that European unis like to keep their module lists very well-hidden just to keep themselves amused as we foreigners try and negotiate their websites, but I got there in the end!
• on finding out where I was going (yay!) I then completed a learning agreement, application form and got a certificate of language from my tutor, all ready to send off to France
• got in touch with a student who is already out there for advice on finding accommodation, which was amazingly helpful!
• got my travel insurance (which I really need to pay for actually....I'll do that today)
• done a slightly ridiculous amount of online research, including looking at colocation (the French word for flat shares) websites for potential flats and flatmates, researching the area, looking at churches, and starting a Pinterest board. The importance of the Pinterest board, of course, cannot be overstated; how else am I meant to start making everyone else jealous about all my cultural adventures?

There's already so much I could say on all of these, but I don't want to bore you and my future self to tears with lots of insignificant details which now seem completely essential but may turn out to be less so over time. So to summarise, my current thoughts on mon année française (sounds so much better in French...and it rhymes) are... (more bullet points)

• French bureaucracy is already living up to its infamous reputation of being a bit tricky, but with a good amount of research and WordReference it's not proving impossible yet...even if one of the forms I had to hand in Exeter said they didn't think they had ever been asked for before!
• I'm starting to get very excited by the prospect of lots of (real) brioche, French bread and cheese, having really cool photos to put on Facebook, conversing completely fluently with natives (obviously. Or maybe not.) and trips to Paris, Versailles (which I can't wait to visit) and various other locations in Europe to visit my other friends embarking on YAs (that makes it sound like I have a friend staying in Versailles...that would be amazing, but alas, untrue)
• I'm also completely terrified by the prospect of finding accommodation which is close to the uni but also in a good location in the city, and finding people to live with. Ideally I want to live with French students - as all our language tutors have told us that they can tell who has lived with natives and who has lived with other international students when their students come back to Exeter in fourth year - but if that proves impossible I want to try and live with either a French family or other international students as opposed to on my own
• I'm also terrified about many other things, including how I'm going to settle in to a completely new culture in a new language when my friends are mostly all together back in Exeter, how I'm going to deal with all the settling in jobs like setting up a French bank account and enrolling in university, and whether I will be ostracised by all French people due to my English-ness and terrible French, and therefore spend my whole year speaking English. Not ideal.

I will try and do another post soon with more details about all the things I'm excited about (for my own benefit as well as for anything else!) but until then...the adventure has begun!!

PS  I feel now is a good time to apologise for any French words I may drop in to this and any future blog posts. I know it makes me sound snobby and superior, but sometimes there just isn't a word in English. And if I can't use my language skills to make myself seem a teensy bit more intelligent than I actually am from time to time, what's the point?!