Arrivée en Corse!

My year in France has begun!

4am view from the plane! 

After a very long journey (16 hours!) I have finally arrived in Corsica! It is very hot and very beautiful.

The flight was ok. I was sat next to an elderly french couple who didn't speak english but managed to find out that they lived in Ajaccio and had been visiting their son in London. They asked me in english 'why you go to Corsica?' and I tried to tell them that I was coming here to work but couldn't remember the word for work! I tried 'l'emploi' but I must have been pronouncing it wrong as I just got blank looks.

Mon sac being
unceremoniously
thrown into the hold...

When I arrived, I waited in the Airport for a few hours. I met an italian girl who had also travelled from Bristol who was meeting her friends from Italy to go camping in Corsica near Porto-Pollo. The girls at the information desk were very helpful and told me that there was another bus that I could get rather than the one at 4pm. The earlier bus was at 3pm but I needed to call the coach company to tell them to pick me up at the airport. When I called, they told me that there was an earlier one - at 2pm - but that I would have to go to 'Gare Routiere'. So, at 12.30pm I got on a bus to the 'Gare CFC' and then had to walk nearly a mile to 'Gare Routiere' which was not very fun with my very heavy bags! I met a nice english woman though - she was a secondary school french teacher in Oxford and was going to do 'WOOF'ing. Something about Working on organic farms or something but she said she was going to be working with horses at some stables in Bonafaccio (South Corsica). We also met a french girl who was fluent in English who was meeting up with friends to go on a Scuba Diving holiday.

First views of
Ajaccio en Corse

When we got to the Coach station, I bought my ticket and then waited almost an hour until 2pm but when it arrived the bus driver said 'the weather c'est nice et tres comfortable. We go at 3hrs'. Was a bit annoyed about that but me and the french girl and teacher went to find dinner at a little brasserie.

The brasserie was funny. It was being run by 4 or 5 men (really tiny place so not sure why there were so many but perhaps it was a family?) None of them were doing much - except the oldest man who was smoking and talking to some locals. When they brought us the menu they kept telling us all about the buffet and that it was wonderful and to please have the buffet because it was very good. I think about 3 of them came to tell us to have the buffet! The french girl (her name was Emiline) said that they were probably lazy and didn't want to do any cooking! I just had some pasta bolognase which was very nice!

On the bus I managed to fall asleep for a little while, but not long! Helene picked me up from Propriano but she kept trying to get me to tell the bus driver to take me to different places because she didn't want to drive in traffic (there wasn't really any queues, just lots of cars). I just got off in Propriano and she found me within 15 mins.

First views of Corsica
(I was surprised
by the mountains!)

We then had to go via a petrol station and get the car washed. The car wash was an outside/uncovered one. It took about 5 minutes per car and there were about 4 cars in front of us when we joined the queue! (And they were worried about the time it would take to drive through Propriano town centre...!?) The drive back to the Villa from there was ok but through mountains which, at times, was terrifying! It was a little bit like that on the coach too but I just went to sleep instead of watching!

Je suis arrivé à
l'aéroport d'Ajaccio

The family is very nice. Benoit speaks quite good english, and Helene's sister speaks english with her german husband. Helene has 5 children (Alienor -17, Hermine-7, Hillaire-12, Wandrille-5 et Anthelme-10) and all but the 2 youngest speak some english. Alienor is nearly fluent in English along with her 2 cousins (Tommy-20 and Alice-15). The youngest two - Wandrille et Hermine are facinated with me because I'm a new person and I don't understand what they're saying so they keep sitting next to me and repeating the same sentence over and over again and try in different voices, slower, louder etc. in the hope that I'll understand. They are very sweet though so hopefully I'll start understanding what they're on about soon!

The villa that they are staying with is really lovely. It overlooks Tizzano harbour and has a pool. They have put me in a little utility room where they were storing the luggage but the grandmother thought I might like to have my own space. No one else seems to realise that and they have spent all evening asking me if I'm sure I'll be ok in this room and if I want to I can share the girls room. Why would you leave a perfectly suitable room empty? I only have a double duvet cover as a blanket so hopefully it will stay warm and I won't get cold in the night.

It turns out that the grandparents have actually paid for the holiday. It's a family reunion in celebration of grandparents and parents anniversaries (50 and 20/25), and some birthdays. They all loved the musical tin and fudge/shortbread though they haven't eaten it yet. I will probably play with the loom bands with the children tomorrow.

We just finished dinner about half an hour ago (around 10:30pm). Very late. We had bread, cheese and some kind of uncooked, smoked ham/bacon stuff and melon as some sort of aperitif, then spaghetti with bolognase (again) or 'pulpe' (octopus) that they caught this morning, and then a roast chicken course, and then salads, and then dessert (a kind of vanilla and raison semilina pudding which was quite nice). Most of dinner was outside where I just kept getting attacked by mosquitos! 

I'm very tired and have no idea what time the family will all get up or what they are all doing tomorrow. We'll see!

View from the bus
to Gare CFC