Bonjour tout le monde! (although sadly I could probably say "Hi Mum" but we shall pretend I have millions of fans...)

I decided that I would update my blog when my back muscles and shoulder muscles had recovered so here we are... you may be wondering why I have been in such immense pain... well, glad you asked. Last weekend I arrived in France after saying a sad goodbye to Liv and the lovely Harris whanau in London. There was me, my big backpack, my laptop, my hand luggage backpack and Rocky. My numerous fans may remember Rocky from his brief adventure through the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. So there I was with a massive box with a bicycle (which I might add weighed 22.5 kgs on its own).

Luckily, before chosing to bring my bike I had researched the Lyon airport and discovered a left luggage office when I could leave it and come back with fresh muscles and far less stuff. However, the overly cheerful guy told me Rocky was too big to leave to I spent the next 2hours lugging all my stuff to the appartment where I am staying... was not impressed at the fact that NOT ONE person offered to help me even when I was carrying about 50kgs of luggage up multiple lots of STAIRS...

Anyway, I have now recovered, Rocky is semi assembled and I am loving it here in Lyon. Its FREEZING (e.g. -3 degrees during the day...) but a gorgeous old city set on 2 rivers. I'm living in an appartment with 2 lovely flatmates - Lotte from Germany and Akio from Japan. I was super lucky with my choice of flat - I have had some amazing Japanese meals, German cookies (gluten free even) and lots of laughs!

And yes, it does appear that to fit in here I need to find myself a little rat like dog to put a winter jacket on, and yes, I will need to let it poo on the pavement! I keep expecting the dog owners to whip out a plastic bag and clean up after their ratdogs but no, everything remains to get stuck to your shoe - makes txting and walking a highly dangerous activity!

I had my first day of uni today and I am now really excited about the term ahead. As a student of political science I'm grouped with the law students so we are a much smaller group than the other faculties. I imagine the compulsory intensive french law paper starting tomorrow will be rather um interesting considering I wouldn't even understand if it was in english! However, its all good for my french so, when in Rome! (just for my moroccan travel buddy).

Anyway, I am super excited about the semester ahead, the Univerisity de Jean Moulin (Lyon 3) sounds like it has tonnes to offer - from over 35 different sports to culture evenings, exchange student parties (hello!), adventures to other parts of France, skiing trips, an amazing selection of courses and heaps more!