My logic being that I couldn’t possibly get lost if all I had to do was look at the skyline to find both my hotel AND the train station. That’s about as foolproof as it gets...except that I got lost wandering aimlessly looking at shops. But in my pursuit, I found an excellent place to have something to eat. By that stage I was very hungry so breakfast was more than welcome. 
The “confiture” (jam) was amazing, I’d never tasted anything like it. Unfortunately, the waitress didn’t speak english and my french was very poor so I couldn’t work out how to ask, nor would I have understood her response.
I was very excited when I found the Montparnasse “Zapa” store. My first Parisian purchase was an absolutely amazing Zapa cape, at 50% thanks to the January “soldes”. The shop assistants were fantastic, and although only one of them spoke english, they were very excited to have an Australian in their store and made a great fuss over helping me with sizes, conversions and helping me find the best pieces from the season. What people say about shop assistants in France being rude and unhelpful must be a myth. The girls were so amazing, as have they been in all the shops I’ve visited.
I did make my way back, and I managed to get on the train...in the process finding two “aim-overseasers” - Jenn and Melissa! I was very excited at the prospect of being able to get to know a couple of the participants on the way into Tours, as well as to have the added support of an extra few pairs of hands when it came to loading the luggage on and off the train. The train doesn’t stop for very long at all so the process, though cumbersome, needed to be speedy and efficient.
First afternoon in Tours was pretty quiet, we wandered around the main streets with Stéphaniie but we had a fantastic evening meeting a few of the Aloha team members and some of their friends at Bar Le Tourangeau. Our french companions were quite amused by our accents, iphone language applications, strange headgear (earmuffs) and our own particular style of keeping warm in the cold - “kangaroo style”. It was a great opportunity to get to know some of the friendly faces we would see around campus over the next 3 weeks and to correct some of the strange interpretations of the french language we were experiencing in our attempts to communicate with the locals. For instance, Instead of “je ne parle pas francais” meaning, “I do not speak french”, I had been saying “je ne parle francais” which is equivalent to “I not speak french”. While I argued that I was still managing to get my point across, I did have to concede that it was probably a little bit funny.
We’ve had a very busy first few days with classes all day and long lunches in the cafeteria. Our French teacher (who only spoke French) was fantastic. Not being able to communicate with her in English meant that we were more reliant on the little French we did know and it really helped us to push ourselves to learn enough to get us through ordering dinner, booking our various day/weekend trips and little things like shopping at the supermarket and getting directions.
We also learnt (the hard way) a simple “merci” is a more than adequate thank-you for anyone who offers us directions. “je t’aime!” is a highly inappropriate response and is not always well received by our French counterparts. Even if we would have struggled to find a supermarket open on a Sunday without their assistance.
On the Wednesday group 2 were lucky enough to be able to participate in French Gastronomy class, which I think may have been my favourite dining experience while in Tours thus far. We cooked our own amazing meals from scratch, with a little executive decision-making and improvisation along the way. Thanks to Mel, our sauce had twice the required amount of garlic and onion, and some further executive decision-making left the entire kitchen without salt or pepper as Mai seasoned the chicken to taste. Then we forgot to peal the pears before we sliced them, and still - the food was amazing. We have some very talented chefs among us.
After our cooking lessons we launched straight back into Advertising in Europe with Michael Yorke, and began working on our presentations in teams of 4, and group 1 went to the Gastronomy class. By Friday we decided that our notorious hallway parties just weren’t cutting it anymore. We’d been working hard, and we deserved a night out on the town. We definitely showed our French counterparts how Australian’s like to have fun. By Monday we’d pulled ourselves back together in time for class, and the beginning of Business & Sustainable Development in Europe with Mary McKinley.
Today we had our presentations, and our final exam for Advertising in Europe, some of us were quite nervous, me included (!) but we all managed to get through and we’re wishing good luck to group 1 who’ve been working hard to prepare themselves for their assessment tomorrow. This weekend we’re celebrating Australia day with our French friends, and then we will all say a quick au revoir to Tours as we head off to see a little bit more of Europe over our long weekend. We’ve all bonded very quickly, so the vast majority of us are headed to Amsterdam together on a 6am train (good luck!). The rest are headed off to Spain, Switzerland for skydiving, or to the UK to visit family and friends, and probably a little bit of shopping along the way.
I wish everyone all the best - please return safety on Sunday night x
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