Finally Friday

Yesterday was one of those days, the very worst kind of days, and one thing after another kept going wrong. To get into Avignon in time Becca and I were up at 5.30, and so arrived in Avignon at 7.30 with an hour and a half to kill before we started. We had breakfast in one of many beautiful squares in Avignon, a chocolat chaud and un café (un café here is not just a black coffee as I had thought- they are served as espressos and are seriously strong) and tried to connect to the public wifi, to no avail. At this point in proceedings we are not surprised we can't seem to connect to any wifi, just increasingly frustated that we are paying 2€ at a time for 500MB which barely seems to last a day. 

So le formation started and it was a very long day, of presentations, teaching demonstrations, all helpful stuff but a lot of it. An english friend of my aunt's who has a second home near Apt, was staying and we had arranged to meet that night in Apt. I was desperately hoping the afternoon would finish at 3 so I could get home for 5 instead of having to get the later bus and be home at half 7. No such luck, we finished late so I rushed in panic to MacDonalds, where I'd said I'd meet Becca outside to pick up the free wifi and check my emails, and the first thing that came through was an email from the school in which I will be working to say I would find out my schedule at the reunion this evening. Cue: serious panic. 

I trawled through my emails and found nothing whatsoever about a reunion. The school have only emailed me once before, back in June and it obviously did not mention a meet up. On Tuesday when I met my mentor she did mention to me about something on Friday night, but I was struggling to understand and I told her I had already made an appointment so she said, vehemently, 'c'est pas une problème! pas du tout!'. Whether she had not conveyed this to the school or not, I had no idea, and the previous assistant had never mentioned anything like this to me so I was completely confused and completely panicked about what to do. Knowing that I was still in Avignon and unable to get back until late anyway I replied to the school and sent my sincere apologies but that I had not known about it and had already made arrangements that evening. Whether they got it or not I have no idea, so I have been left wondering whether they were sitting waiting for me to arrive or not- I guess I will find out on Monday. 

To add insult to injury there were roadworks going on as we left Avignon, in severe rush hour traffic so a two hour journey was three and with another appointment to get to, I was slowly losing the will to live. Fortunately, the friend I met in Apt saved the day, taking me for pizza, and we talked about home and family and France and Apt and our lives in a beautiful restaurant over wine, pizza and hot chocolates and then walked back through the streets and said goodbye. I slept very well Friday night. Finallement- le weekend!