More holidays!

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Hi everyone,
How are you all? I hope everyone is doing really well and enjoying life 😊
Sorry its been a while since my last entry, I haven't been at school to use the computers! Class finally starts for me this afternoon, Contemporary Indian Society, just for a little variety!! Should be intersting to say the least.

Oh; some exciting news, last week we got to go to a real european cup soccer match between Olympique Lyonnais and Manchester united! It was heaps of fun, lots of nutty football fans, and way too many different chants to try and figure out in french to yell along with everyone else. One of them goes something like "those who do not jump are not lyon people!" in french of course, and to prove they're real supporters everyone jumps up and down while yelling and throwing stuff everywhere. It was cool, and got to meet some french guys, who at first were mocking us cos we were speaking english. So i just turned round and started talking about soccer to them in french and they shut up pretty quick, and ended up chatting with them all the way to out home metro stop! Apparently there aren't too many girls here who actually play soccer! But school has mixed practise sessions for soccer so at least I can still play.

I'l need all the sport I can get the way we've been eating; before the soccer, Cat cooked us a great dinner, she actually has an oven!, then we processed downstairs to the ice cream parlour and ate these enormous sundaes with banana and chocolate sauce....so good!!!

My roommate Torse and I just spent a wonderful weekend in this beautiful lakeside town called Annecy, east from Lyon towards the french alps. the train journey there was a little interesting though! a scary ticket collector told us off for not knowing we had to stamp our ticktes before boarding the train, and then was lovely when he realised we weren't french! No fines for foreingers apparently! Then our train from Lyon to Chambery was late so we got to chambery with negative 1 minute to get the train to annecy, well we missed it of course, so got sent on a big train detour to Aix-les-bains, spening an hour in chambery first where we found this crazy asian-influenced elephant statue in the middle of a square!

When we finally got to Annecy, we wandered through the old part of town, all cobbled streets and old buildings, interlaced with canals, and up the hill to the youth hostel. We met a kiwi girl in our room who did a micro honours degree at Otago, with John Tagg no less!! So we spent a full minute at least laughing about Clive ronson (NB lauren and euan, we will never escape!).

Torse and I whiled away the rest of the weekend bush walking and lying on this tiny man-made beach in our bikinis, soaking up the sun and getting a little burnt, swimming in the lake and people watching. The french can be a little odd in their choice of bathing apparel. We made friends with this lovely young french couple on saturday on 'the beach', the lady had a broken leg but we chatted away in french for a while, which was great. Then later when the guy decided to go for a swim he got up and torse and I just about wet ourselves laughing; the front of his black shiny lycra bike pant style bathers were fine, but the back was almost completely perished! We didn't know where to look.

What with that, all the topless swimming women, naked children and extraodrinarily saggy old women in hawaian print bikinis, we found it to be quite an amausing weekend! Plus all french kids seem to be mega brats, particularly those called Gaston; ok well just ONE called Gaston. He amused us for two full mornings, he chased this little girl with a pram around the grass for 15 mins trying to steal her doll, her screaming, him naked and grinning evilly, then he kicked over this other kids carefully-constructed sand castles! He was told off by about 10 adults while his Mum ignored him and removed all her clothes to sunbathe!

But Annecy is truly beautiful, and while a little touristy, it was a most relaxing weekend. Just in case things were getting a bit stressful! Lol I only have 2 of my 5 classes this week cos the teachers can't be bothered strating yet, so I start at 3pm today; and finish at 5pm tomorrow for the week. Not bad huh?!

Thanks for all the emails guys, I feel very loved! Keep em coming, and I'll reply as quick as I can.

Better go, but love you all lots, bisous,
Samara xxoo

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