The 7 month itch

Hey, so I've been in Tours for 7 months now! There's not really any itch associated therewith, just trying for a snappy title.

Normally, of course, 7 months wouldn't be a big deal, but it happens to be the same length of time I spent in France in 2007, and also of course the same as my contract in Nice. It's amazing how much faster the time has flown by here in Tours, it definitely seems to have gone faster than in Nice. I suppose a lot of that has to do with working full-time instead of 12 hours a week (and that only in theory, I hardly ever did the full 12 hours). Funny how time passes faster when you have things to get up for in the morning eh? Another part of it is that I hated where I was living (or, to be more accurate, who I was living with) in Nice, so I'm much happier now that I don't feel trapped in my bedroom because I don't want to run into my flatmate in the hall. Plus there are lovely, huggable kitty cats in this flat :)

Of course there were good things about Nice as well. As anyone who read my blog back then will no doubt recall, I really got in to going for longish walks around the region - just stunningly beautiful and very easy logistically speaking. I feel a bit bad now that winter's set in that I didn't figure out the logistics of how to do that around here in summer, but maybe next year... Speaking of winter, yep, it's cold, it's been snowing a little bit, and much as I get excited by snow, maybe Nice does take the cake in weather terms. But Tours just feels more homey - I love being able to walk pretty much everywhere I want to go (so far there's only been a handful of days where I haven't been able to walk home from work due to the weather) and the city has a nice general atmosphere. There's always something going on, but on a pretty small scale, so things don't get overwhelmingly busy or touristy (well, if I block out getting stuck behind old ladies at the Saturday markets or tourists on Rue Nationale in the height of summer).

Still waiting to hear if I get to stay (i.e. renew my contract) for another year. Soon, hopefully... With the help of the mostly useless Wolfram Alpha computational search engine, I've worked out that between now and the end of my current contract, on the 30th of April, there are 152 days. Take out weekends, and that leaves 109 week days. Now here's the crazy part - I have 35 days of holiday left to take by the end of my contract. 109 - 35 = 74 & let's not forget Good Friday and Easter Monday, taking me to a grand total of 72 work days left. Yep, that's right, between now and the end of the year I'll be working less than one day in two! Even after I come back from my 3 week Christmas break, I'll have enough days left over to take over a week off in February, March and April if I choose to do it that way. And let's not forget, when I do turn up to work, these are 7 hour days we're talking! Ah France, you crazy country, that's why we love you so!