J’ai des choses à faire

Waking up and having chats with everyone before work was lovely, and then going back to bed for an hour or so after was ever better! Nothing in France seems to open until 10am shop/bank-wise…so I thought I would just wait, you know…to be on the safe side!

I had to start cancelling and closing certain things that tied me to France, all of which was rather upsetting to be completely honest with you. The first to go was my phone contract sans engagement…and going into the shop and asking how I did it was the first step. The assistant then gave me a very handy letter to send to the appropriate place to cancel said contract…all I had to do was sign it. So that was easy! I did read it first, of course, to make sure it didn’t say I was an idiot or anything like that! I then headed to La Poste to send said letter and get that sorted…but to be honest I am uncertain to how they could collect any more money from my French bank account, since I was just about to go and close it and wire the remainder of the money in there back to England. I already had my international code, I had my bank account details of my bank in England, I had the address of my bank, I had everything. Or so I thought. Turns out you need a thing called a ‘smart code’ (yes, possibly an English word set there!), which with a little bit of flirting and a pinch of lost étrangère the guy behind the counter rang through to a few people and found said code for me. Will the money get into my account? On verra. Will I be hunting some people down if it doesn’t? Of course.

I then had an hour before a coffee date with Baptiste, so I settled myself down at a table in the glorious sunshine and read my book with a drink. Not going to lie, this is the lazy life I have been missing! It was so wonderful to see Baptiste and find out what he had been up to over the summer, I really hope he can come and visit me in England soon as well, especially since he is thinking of doing his Erasmus year in Liverpool. After he had left I had a few minutes before my meeting my next friend, Mathieu, and I overheard some girls speaking English on a table nearby and then order something in French in a really foreign accent. I turned to them and asked (in English) how long they had been in Caen…a few days they replied, followed by complimenting me on my English. Bit awkward to then explain that I actually was English.

Anyhows, ended up chatting to them for a while, and they were asking me all the questions that now seem so normal…when I thought my French had improved, how did I improve it etc. when one of the waiters (that I knew) came over and told me (in French) to stop talking to them in English as they were there to improve their French. To my utmost pride I was able to switch languages and reply in French that I had occasionally spoken English in the past while in France and had turned out fine. I will admit a little bit of smugness was there when I saw the faces of the two girls! Another flurry of questions followed until Mathieu arrived and then we began to catch up on each other’s lives and summers as well! After a drink we ended up having a wander around Caen (and Mathieu gave me a wonderful surprise birthday present…a book that I cannot wait to read), I figured that I wouldn’t be seeing any more of Caen until the next time I was back, so I might as well make the most of the sunshine. And this is where this photograph stemmed from really. Since this is my last time in Caen since the start of my time on blip I thought that it would only be apt for me to be in the final picture. So here I am, in front of the town hall, loving life. Caen, tu vas me manquer.

My day was not, however, over yet. I headed back to chez Coloc’ to spent my last hour or so in the centre-ville with Thibaud and Thomas, before heading to the bus stop to go to Ifs to see Caroline, Sylvère and baby Zoé. Absolutely lovely to see them all, and Zoé really has grown up in the time I have been gone…I can only imagine what she will look like the next time I see her. Again, another catch-up, some amazing dinner and then I was off to the port to catch the ferry. I was lucky enough to have Caroline give me a lift to Ouistreham so I didn’t have to lug all my heavy bags onto a bus to then get to the port…and everything was surprisingly easy. I arrived at the port, checked in, ten minutes later I was on the bus to the ferry, then on the ferry, and went to my cabin on the same floor as I got on on…then I went to sleep for the entire journey. Can’t say easier than that! I would be more than happy to do that journey again, not so much my one out to France though!