Last month in Dijon

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Last month in Dijon

Well, what a month december was, it jsut seemed to fly by for me. Everything was potential last time things to do in Dijon. People were gradually leaving to return home. And above all Christmas Hype started to hit, the christmas lights were turned on, might ahve already mentioned this... the ice rink opened and everyone started to feel festive.
The past couple of weeks have been even more hectic though as we've had exams to study for as well as doing all my christmas shopping, finding gifts for my flatmates as well as some friends from ESC.
Exam study went well... it wasnt very productive though as me adn Paige spent most of our study time in Grand Cafe... we started with coffee and then graduated to Monacos (pink beer!) so it was more of social studying than anything. The exams were a joke though, all us native english speakers... and esther, finished generally in 45 min max as the questions were very basic and the exams i had id already done the units back home so it was mroe revision than anything.

Me and esther did an early present swap and chrissie lunch on monday, it was nice to just hang out together for awhile as it turned out to be our last opportunity before we both left. Monday night was then out last night at Bento's a french and japanese fusion sushi bar. Such good sashimi platers that Paige, Kelsey and Ayperi introduced us too. Tuesday was more exam study as my exams were on wednesday. Tuesday night was my flatmate christmas dinner night, iI cooked us all dinner and bought desert. I got Alex a guitar book as he was always playing the guitar but as he couldnt read the music had a very limited repetoire, and for ·Diane i made her a dvd of our first 6 months in Dijon at ESC. She really liked it and had been going on about how she liked mine so much. Oh, just a side note, you're all going to hate me when I come back as throughout my time here i've been making a dvd of my travels etc and it is 16 min long, you ALL have to watch it!
Then onto wednesday, my two exams came and went without much ado, so im not too stressed about them. Wednesday ngiht was my Love Actually night, as i couldnt watch it chrissie eve in australia with all my girls i got a bunch of the international studetns all over to mine and we all watched it. It was really nice jsut to hang out at home, and most of the movie was spent with us talking over it or quoting it nearly word perfect! Those of us who watched were; Me, Esther(Dutch), Ingrid(USA), Paige(USA), Kelsey(USA), MArgaux(Irish), Aoife(Irish) and Alex(FR). There wasnt too many of us as lots of the studetns had already left to go back home already. It was really weird speaking to someone and then the next day having them gone with the realisation that more than likely you'll never see them again.
Thursday was my packing day, or so I though, I started a little wed night after everyone left and scared my self with the thought of how on earth am I going to get thsi all in my bag. I also had to get ready for the Gala de Noel which is the big annual event for ESC Dijon where everyone gets in suits and dresses up. To add to my stress mum called me to tell me taht there might be a problem with changing my ticket. Instead of it being possible to change the return date 6 months from the set one it may have been only 6 months from the larrival date, which would have ment id have to come home in febuary. Not very smart. So that ensued me having to rush to school to use the internet to skype them, only to have my conection being so bad that the call service couldnt help me. Ended up getting it sorted all over the place, getting josh to call them in Australia whilst i was on a skype call to them, so he could relay the questions to me.
But now that that is done Josh has been able to book his ticket over here! Hes arriving in Spain June 30th and we're going to travel round madrid and barcelona, make our way up through the south of france, via dijon then paris , after that Esther has invited us to her home town, Arnhem which has a big music and drinking festival in July. So we're hoping to go there for a couple of days before making our way to England to visit the grandparetns one last time before flying back home from Heathrow on the 29th of July.

I'm excited!

But anyways, back to thursday, I finally managed to pack everyhting away and then nearly wet myself when I saw that i'd packed 6 bags! My rucksack, sleeping back, backpack, bag of christmas presents, big black handbag (or purse, according to paige) and then my normal handbag. But I had no time to think about how id carry it as it was then time for me to do my ball preparations. I am currently at my grandparetns so i cant upload anything yet but ill try and upload photos when im in London, so from the 30th dec onwards there may be some up. The Christmas Gala was AMAZING everyone was dressed up and looking stunning, all 6 of us girls who went were wearing black, so we were abit like the balck brigade! Getting to our venue was tricky, there were buses running half hourly from school to the venue, except everyones tickets and names needed to be checked before getting on the bus. and there was tonnes of people trying to get on each bus as it was absolutely freezing. We were standing outside in minus 6 degress waiting at least 30 min to get on a bus, i was wearing a balck cocktail dress, no tights as i had on strappy heels and a coat a scarf, my legs were strangely warm but my toes were frozen by the time i got on the bus. The night was non stop, but was pretty well handled and didnt get out of control as everyone was trying to stay respectable in there finery. Unfortuantly for me though, i was having such a good time that I didnt notice time flying by until at ten to four one of my friends asked what time we should go home. So ·I was in bed by approx 430ish am. Normally this wouldnt matter as i oculd sleep the day away except friday was my travelling day to england. I had to be up at 8:15 to shower and pack my last minute things to be in time for my 9am taxi to get my to the train station for my 9:24 train, i got there perfectly on time as the train was pulling up as i arrive on the platform. Fortunately for me i had noone next to me and was able to sleep all the way to paris, although my neck didnt like me for it!
On arrival in Gare de Lyon my next mission was to get to Gare de Nord to find the Eurostar station. This was kind of tricky with all my bagage, i had my rucksack and sleeping back on my back, my backpack hooked on to my front, my handbags on one shoulder and the christmas presents on teh other. So i was a walking sausage. Most amusing for everyone else im sure. The RER between the two stations took ages as it kept having to stop in the tunnel to let others pass, and as it was only one stop i ended up standing for half an hour with all my bags on crammed between people on the train.
Travelling as a single I have realised has one major downside, and that is that you can't buy food easily or look in shops. Once I had checked in at the ·Eurostar, i had 40 min to kill before boarding, so i found a seat, took off all my bags only to realise that i couldnt go look int he shops as i couldnt leave my bags unattended, probably in retrospect this saved me some money though.
The Eurostar journey was easy and uneventful, it enabled me to get out my laptop and put my gala picts into my dvd to finish it all off so that was good. Then I only had one more train to catch before seeing my grandparents. The funny thing was I was so used to trying to ask things in French that my natural reaction has become asking questions in french so i went up to someone to ask how to get to the Kings Cross Station adn started asking in French! Craziness! But I made it and the Kings Cross to Cambridge train was really quick, it only took 45min to get there.
So now im in England, preparing myself for christmas, and doing a little relaxing. It was wonderful having a cooked dinner with meat adn 5 veg, so kudos to grandma, nothing beats her cooking (except maybe mums)!
So for now I'll leave you with all that information and the next time you'll hear from me will be after Christmas, and maybe the New Years. If that is the case, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!
gros bisous
camilla

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