Introduction

Good Morning Campers, and Hi-de-Hi! (for those of you looking blankly at this phrase, ask your parents!)

This blog is a sequel to Musings from Saarbruecken, which was written about my time there for nine months working as an English Language Assistant in two secondary schools. That blog, (all thirty something entries of it!) can be found at Musings from Saarbruecken

For those of you who haven’t or don’t want to read my previous blog, I suppose it would be a good idea for me to introduce myself, and to explain what this blog will be about!

My name is Adam Vickery, I’m a student of Modern Languages and European Studies (French & German) at the University of Bath, some 15 miles from my home in Chippenham, Wiltshire. So that’s me sorted, now, what’s this blog about, I hear you asking (metaphorically, of course!).

This blog is about the second half of my year abroad. For those of you who were paying attention in the first part of this blog you will have noticed that I study both French &  German, and that I spent a large proportion of 2009/2010 in Germany. My University, rather sensibly, requires me to have spent at least three months in both countries before they allow me to undertake my final year studies. As I had previously spent four weeks in France before my time in Germany, it seemed to make sense to spend the remaining two months in France following my time in Germany, in order to give me the chance to remember how to speak the language before heading back to uni in October!

I had, originally, planned to work for a friend in his cottage in France, doing cleaning, gardening, and helping out the guests who rented it during the holiday season, however, this plan fell through, when someone rented the cottage on a long term basis. Therefore, it was necessary to make an alternative plan. This plan involved a mega-caravan road trip starting in Germany and then heading down to France from Strasbourg (Alsace), to Lorient (Brittany) calling at Lyon, Limoges, and La Rochelle on the way – you could call it a trip from L, but that would be a very bad joke, and I wouldn’t dream of making any of those in this blog….(hmm.!).

This blog will be about that trip, which starts with the whole family, then my sister and Mum go home for a few weeks (something called work, apparently you have to go), and then they return towards the end of the road trip to help pick up the pieces!

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that we’re taking two of our SIX parrots on this trip with us, so if anyone from the University is reading this and is concerned about me not getting the chance to speak French, you try taking two parrots out with you wherever you go, and not speaking French!

So, with the introduction out of the way, then the blog can begin…although not tonight…my laptop doesn’t have enough battery for it!