The last week has gone by incredibly quickly and been filled with literal and metaphorical sunshine! Last Monday was absolutely boiling – it got up to 36 degrees and so we headed, sweating and gasping, for the lake where they have a fake beach, complete with volleyball nets, sand and ice cream sellers. The plan was to sunbathe but it was far too hot to actually sit in the sun, so we found a shady spot under a tree (the good thing about fake beaches is that you can find shade without trying to force a massive umbrella to stand up in the sand!) and ate ice cream. We also went swimming in the lake itself which was a fantastic break from the heat – the water was cool and there were floating ‘islands’ – basically huge plastic platforms – that you could swim out to and dive off or sunbathe on. It was a really good day and I really want to go back before I leave – a date which is approaching far too rapidly.
Everything we do at the moment is sort of coloured by the fact that we’re leaving Dijon next week – each time we do something, we know it could be the last time. The last trip to the lake, the last visit to Carrefour (it’s just a supermarket but for some reason we always get really excited to go there…), the last time we go to Café Gourmand or see our French classmates. The act of leaving France has seemed to drag on and on, so much so that part of me wishes I was leaving sooner while the rest of me screams that it never, ever wants to go! I’ve felt like I’m just about to leave ever since Megan went back to Scotland almost two weeks ago, at which point I still had three weeks to go.
Leaving soon isn’t stopping us from trying new things though and we were excited when we discovered that one of the many free sports that the university offers the students is kayaking. We decided to go along last Thursday and we turned up all excited and enthusiastic – feelings which quickly turned to fear when we realised that everyone else there were fairly proficient kayakers, having been doing the sport three times a week since March while the three of us had never done it before. They all knew each other really well and had lots of in jokes and banter but they also seemed genuinely pleased that we had gone along and they made every effort to include us. We went to a lake about half an hour away from campus by minibus and basically just messed about in the kayaks for a pleasant couple of hours. The others practiced capsizing and then righting themselves – something which looks difficult and terrifying – while we got the hang of going in a straight line, which is a lot harder than it sounds! After a while, Yves, the instructor, got out a plastic ball and split us into teams to play ‘passe a dix’ – basically it was just catch in kayaks; you had to pass the ball ten times between your own team member without dropping it and you couldn’t throw it to the person who had just thrown it to you. The fun bit was that when someone did drop it, everyone else had to kayak towards it and try to poach the ball for their own team. As I said, we were only out for a couple of hours but we had such a good time that Sophie and I decided to go along on the group’s excursion to the river Doubs on Saturday. We met at 8am and drove two hours to the river, where we donned our extremely unflattering wetsuits, slathered ourselves in sunscreen and gaped at the map on the bank of the river as Yves showed us where we would be going and how long it would take (8 hours to do about 23km!!) At this stage I was seriously doubting my ability to propel myself forward for that distance and was starting to brick it a little bit! Yves had a sore shoulder so he and Sophie were going to be in a two-man canoe rather than a kayak so she was feeling more confident than me, but once we’d set off I forgot about how far we had to go and once I’d got the hang of going straight I started to have fun. The water was quite calm and we were going with the current, which wasn’t too strong but had enough rapids to make it fun! It was so pretty as well – I think it must be one of the best ways to see the countryside. At the start we stopped fairly often to look at chateaux on the banks and jump off various bridges, which was fun! We stopped on a little beach for lunch, which was strapped to the big canoe in a waterproof barrel. The other instructor, Anna-Sophie, lives on a farm and had brought a 4kg drum of freshly picked cherries for us, which we devoured in minutes and then spent a pleasant half hour spitting the pits at each other. Incidentally, Anna-Sophie caused some name related issues as the three girls kept answering to each others’ names all day – French people always pronounce my name as ‘Anna’ because they have problems pronouncing the ‘h’ so she basically had both mine and Sophie’s name – it was very confusing! In the traditional French fashion, lunch took around two hours – after we ate we swam in the river and skimmed stones and chatted before we emptied the water out of our kayaks and continued on. It was a long day and by the end I was really exhausted but it was so much fun and felt like a real achievement as well. It was good to be outside in the fresh air all day and to be doing something more energetic than rolling over every fifteen minutes to ensure an even tan!
Towards the end of the week Sophie N and I were trying to spend as much time with Sophie M as possible as she was leaving at the end of the week. Her family drove over from England to pick her up, and we said our tearful goodbyes yesterday morning. It’s really sad to say to goodbye to everyone, because although we all live in the UK and will definitely see each other soon – probably within a couple of months and in the case of Megan and Sophie V, as soon as I get back – we’ll never all be together again at once and certainly never in Dijon. In some ways leaving Dijon to go home is proving harder than leaving home to come here because back then we knew it was only a temporary situation whereas now it’s permanent. That sounds depressing but obviously there are so many good things I’ll be taking from this year and so much I’ve learned – but I’ll talk about all of that next week when I’m back in Edinburgh. I still can’t believe it’s so soon!
Until next time!
