Je voudrais une glace a la fraise.

France. What a country. Just in case you were wondering, I'm back in England now. I went there with school on a watersports trip. They are all so polite! Well, besides the woman who you will hear about soon enough. Here are the best bits:


Goodbye England, Bonjour France!


No-one likes coach journeys. I am no exception to this rule. Especially not when they're 16 hours long. No leg room, no where to sleep, nothing to do constant travel sickness, stench of feet clinging onto the air and lack of healthy supplies. By this I mean, about one in every 20 people carried fruit with them, but everyone carried their chocolate and gummies. Now I don't mean to complain but I have come across comfier forms of travel. But looking on the brighter side of things, coach journeys (long ones) give you time to reflect on life and write and draw and listen to music, but best of all have cheesy conversations with your neighbour that you might regret the next day (may have happened a few times). Also it's a good time to give thanks for all the privileges we have been granted with, because although I seem to be complaining about this awfully long journey, I should be glad we even had a coach to travel by!I thought it could be a good time to thank the person that came up with that all miraculous invention of pocket music, otherwise known as the ipod, and the best mate that bought the charger with them.


I am most thankful for music at a time like this. To me music is a window of hope and a door to escape reality (and the babbling people around you) and just let go. Talking about the babbling people, I have to say they aren't always that bad. If you put aside the fact it's one in the morning and you have a splitting headache, the conversations they have can be entirely amusing. For example I unplugged my ipod and listened into a conversation (more a plot, really) of how two people were planning to take over the world. It was fairly late and I remember little, but I seem to recall, it included brainwashing solution injected into mosquito's who were to pass it to humans. Hilarious! Quite genius really, but I fail to see how anyone would ever consider going along with this plan. But after all this thinking I got exhausted and managed to scrape a good three hours of sleep. Well, in the end we arrived at Rockley campsite at about 8am the next day and went straight onto the activities.


I'm not going to re-track over everyday but there was one that stood out for me...

3 Girls, 3 Paddles And A Kayak.... Scratch That, 2 Girls, 4 Paddles. Oh God.

This was probably the most interesting trip. It was Me, Bibby and Maya. At first. So, we started quite successfully. That lasted about 2 minuets. After we started to slow down, I decided to help the team so I jumped out and pushed the kayak. In this time we over-took 2 kayaks. Being in front of these people also lasted about 2 minuets. By this time (about 10 minuets into it) we were exhausted and just wanted a lift from the motorboats. We sat stationary for a moment and watched our friends being motored to everyone else, about 100 meters away. I decided to have a bit of fun and try to capsize the kayak. This was not a popular decision. But a successful one. We then got told to get back in by our teachers, and were refused the lift we'd been hoping for. After a while all three of us were back in the boat and two of us were paddling to safety (the other was tanning) but suddenly, I got bit by a huge horsefly. I started to scream like the classic girl as I struggled to get it out of my buoyancy aid. I then fell backwards off the kayak, and came up from the water to see Maya jumping about screaming about it attacking her. She then bombed into the water to try to drown it. Turns out it was on Bibby's paddle. After this, they gave in a gave us a lift. Thank god. When we got to the gaggle of girls and kayaks, I got bored again and decided to try to capsize the boat. Again. This time I failed in capsizing the boat, but successfully tipped Maya out. She decided to take 2 paddles in the water with her and abandon us, while shouting something about being too immature for her. I was sure this was directed to Bibby. I then decided to wind Bibby up attempting to capsize the boat, but in the end made her jump in after me. As Bibby swam to retrieve the paddles that had floated away, I followed after her. Not a good idea. Bibby turned around and told me to go and get the kayak, but it was too late. Shit. So I decided to help Bibby get the paddles and grabbed the two within my reach. Bibby then came back with two. So we had gone from 3 girls, 3 paddles and a kayak, to 2 girls, 4 paddles and NO kayak. Success! In the end, after about 20 minuets of bobbing round in the water, we were pulled out by a not so happy, Digger. (That's his name, they didn't bring an actual digger out to rescue us.)

Je voudrais une glace a la fraise.
This is the name of this post, because this was my most frequently used phrase. Mmmm French Ice cream.... The best one I had was on the shopping trip. I got strawberry aka fraise. Mmmm. I also bought a top. Okay, it said New York on it, but it was so, so pretty. The shop was at the top of the street where there was also a circle of flags and seats. Me, Juzzy and Moni went to sit there. But being on a school trip and all, we had to back a certain time, so we decided to check for people with a watch and ask them the time. (Excuse et moi, Avez vous l'uhr, sil vous plait?) So we asked this french woman with a watch, and she turned around and gave us the devilyest glare and just said, 'Non.' So we were a bit peed off. But my amazing J-Dizzle (Juzzy) saw her watch. We got back in time in the end.


(I know this post will be a little out of date but I haven't had access to a computer since I got back on the 18th.)