I've been keeping busy lately, which has been great. Yesterday I woke up at 6am and sat in bed reading for a while until it was time to go to our first meeting. All the primary student assistants met together at 9am, and we attended an exciting meeting where we learned all about the complexities of the French school system, filled out some paperwork, and talked a little bit about teaching. We were released at 12:00, and some of the other girls and I decided to go to the beach. I went to the mall and managed to get a swimsuit for under 5 euro, and we met at the train station at around 1:00, where we quickly bought our tickets.

Unfortunately, we then learned that the next train was not until 5:40, and that if we took it we would not be able to return home that night. Fortunately, we had bought 1 euro tickets (a euro each way, so 2 euro), so although we had wasted money, we hadn't wasted too much. We consoled ourselves with some ice cream and then went and sat in the Jardin de la Fontaine for a few hours, until we got hungry again and went back to my apartment for a dinner of pesto pasta. After that we went to the Irish pub (O'Flaherty's), where we met up with some other assistants for drinks. We resolved to make it to the beach the next day (today).

So this morning I left with two others for Grau-du-roi at 10:30am--two other girls missed the train, but were eventually able to make it. On the way we passed Aigues-Mortes, a walled city that we will definitely have to explore another day. We also saw flamingos, which I thought was very exciting. We spent the day soaking up what we have been told is the last of the summer warmth, bought some postcards, had coffees at a seaside cafe, and swam in the Mediterranean. I left at around 5pm with a girl who had a dinner planned with her host family, and we took the bus back. I learned later that we were fortunate to make it back; a train conductor was stabbed this morning, and train conductors throughout France are striking (http://www.nordeclair.fr/Actualite/Depeches/2011/10/06/greve-sncfc-gare-lille-flandre.shtml). The three other girls who stayed behind were stuck there for some time, and were not able to make it back until fairly late tonight as the buses are being flooded with the would-be train passengers.

For me, it was back to the apartment for some dinner, and then out again to the Fox Tavern. This feels like an eternal vacation.