The BEST and WORST things about living in Nimes:

BEST:

1. The SUN - after 2 weeks of grey and rain in England at Christmas, I was very happy to come back to bright blue skies... all year round!

2. The relaxed way of life : I get a 2.5 hour lunch break, and nothing is rushed. Church always starts about 15 minutes late, and no-one cares if their lessons run over or are late starting at work.

3. Food and wine - everyone loves it, meals are important and I am often invited to eat dinner at people's houses. Local WINE is cheap and not at all bad!

4. It not being horribly embarrassing driving around in a battered 22-year-old car!

5. Cycling - while being scary, its also very liberating!

6. Cheap rent!

7. I love my job! I also get plenty of free time to spend doing other things - like learning the guitar, cooking, seeing friends etc.

8. Living 45 mins away from the sea, and 45 mins away from mountains, Provence, and some of the most beautiful areas of France.

9. Belonging to a great church.

10. My lovely new friends and my sisters-in-law.

11. Having my most lovely JB living just round the corner!

WORST:

1. The wind and not having snow when everyone else has it!

2. The way people are so often late - and things often get cancelled.

3. Being worried about not serving a good meal when I invite people to eat.

4. Shop assistants are often very rude.

5. Driving : People drive like manics, and there are so many traffic lights!

6. Crime - ie. Getting my bike stolen from inside the entrance hall.

7. Nightlife - in the winter, this town is dead at night!

8. Paperwork - it's so complicated and there is so much of it to do! (general France thing!) 

9. It is difficult to get to know new people.

10.  Being far away from family and friends.


And my conclusion is....: there are definitely more good things than bad things about living here - hurray!

Work...

Yesterday one of my students came for his English lesson slightly worse-for-wear. And I mean, slurring his words, stinking of alcohol. He had apparently been at a work lunch until 5 in the afternoon, and in France, that means that he would have been drinking since about midday! So obviously I was a little apprehensive as to how the lesson would pan out (seeing as I teach one-to-one lessons). Actually, the alcohol seemed to really help his English and he spoke the most fluently I had heard him so far. Maybe we should give our students shots before they have their lessons ... could be an interesting way to lower inhibitions!

New job

As you can probably see, I am not so into blogging any more. Life has taken on some sort of a  routine, and I am not so motivated to write, as the novelty of France turns into normality ... but maybe this is the start of something new!

I started my new teaching job 3 weeks ago and I absolutely love it! after a summer of chilling (or sweating) out in the amazing weather, taking holidays, receiving wonderful visitors, and taking and trips to the beach and the river (see below) and working a few hours per week in a restaurant, I feel like I have finally got a routine in my life. I now work in a language centre giving individual lessons to everyone and anyone. I have a big variety of students, from teenagers needing help with English for their exams, to housewives, to army officers, and people needing English for their work. I really love the variety and meeting so many different people. The biggest challenge of all has been explaining some of our tricky and sometimes completely random grammar rules to students, but I am getting there. . . The TEFL course was definitely a good decision!

More from me soon!

Le Gardon, Collias, Juillet 2012

Life in Nimes

Hi everyone,

Many apologies for those who like to read this, (no idea how many of you there are) but I realise I have not written for weeks and weeks. I have been in Nimes nearly 6 weeks.
What to say?
I am sitting in my room in my apartment looking over red roofs at a flawlessly blue sky (which appears 95% of the time here) contemplating the last 6 weeks and how much life has changed!
Well... yes, life has changed. I am no longer living in wet England, I am not near friends and family. But my life has been changing for the last 6 years on and off. And I am happy to say that although I could have moved 900 miles south, I'm still completely myself, God is still as close as He has ever been, and I am still living...
As of two weeks ago, I am waitressing, yet again. But this time in an Italian restaurant in the south of France where I spend 20 hours a week running around in varying degrees of heat, serving people in French and using a crazy auto-command system. But to be honest, it's still waitressing. (Minus the generous tips I was used to back home - French people just don't seem to tip that much!)

I am starting a 'proper grown-up job' in September in a language school where I will be teaching English to the general public, and doing some private tutoring on the side.

Quite frankly, when I felt God tell me to move to Nimes a few months back, I had to completely trust Him. I had no idea what was going to happen. I had four weeks to find somewhere to live, I had some money to live off for a couple of months, and a wonderful man to finally (after a year of long-distance) be near to. After a couple of weeks (and an unreasonable amount of stress on my part) I found a reasonable flat-share really near to the city centre and sorted it all out with the landlord over the phone, and JB went to collect the keys before I arrived. I continued to search for jobs online, and got an interview for the day after I arrived.

I only just heard back from that interview. The response was positive but I had to turn the job down, because since that time, (after about 2 weeks of being here), God had not only provided me with one job, but several. In a week, I was offered work in a childcare agency, was interviewed for the language school job, and was offered a summer job in the restaurant. I took the summer job, and the English teaching job. I am going to do some extra childcare work when I can, and I have also had several responses to my personal tutoring advert. God has abundantly blessed my job search and made me realise that trusting Him with my life was the right thing to do. Is the right thing to do, for all of us, all our lives. He will never let us down. We just need to have faith. In His love for us, in His provision and in His timing.
This life is a massive journey, right now I'm in Nimes, and I feel completely peaceful here, learning new things, gaining new skills and to be quite honest, enjoying an amazing summer!

So many things have happened since I've been here, but there will be more form me soon :)

Day after I arrived - white English person! I'm much more tanned now, promise ;)

Blessed, blessed, blessed.

The sun is finally here in England. Today was warm and beautiful and the air full of fragrance as it so often is in May.

I just spent a lovely evening with my amazing best friend, her parents and three french people. Life is so interesting sometimes!

2 weeks to go until the big move and England is looking so beautiful to me. I'm almost seeing things in a nostalgic light now, it's bizarre....