Catchup #2 Part 2

And finally, my other great adventure for last month: horse riding in Verdun. I have never ridden before (except for pony rides as a small child), and I'm actually pretty wary of horses, but in my "try everything once" year abroad spirit I agreed to a full afternoon of horse riding around the hills of Verdun with one of the English teachers and her partner. And what an experience it was! I got taught how to saddle up my horse and get her ready to ride, got flung unceremoniously up onto the thing (ripping a borrowed rain coat right down the middle in the process - sorry Aline!) and set off into the wilderness... Which actually turned out to be the former battlefields from WW1, now grown over by forest. We had an amazing afternoon being taught by the farmer who was taking us round about the battle of Verdun and just trying to take in the scale of it. The forests stretch for miles around Verdun, and you can still clearly see the trench lines and the massive craters left by bombs exploding everywhere. The landscape is unbelievable as a consequence: there is no flat land everywhere because it's all been ripped up so many times. It doesn't half make you stop and think about things, believe you me. WW2 is talked about so much, it can be very easy to forget just how devastating WW1 was. But let's not get morose here, this is a cheerful blog! So here's a picture of me on a horse so you can have a good laugh:

Me and Quartz the horse

Me with the lovely farmer and his dog. Don't we look fetching in matching coats?!

Suffice to say that I had a blast, mostly because I was so proud of myself for not falling off, although I paid for it the next day! I had a hunchback for about a week afterwards... The farmer has offered to take us for a full day excursion in the spring when the weather gets better, which I would absolutely love to do (but I might have to buy myself a back brace first)!

I think that's enough for one day, so I'll try and get some more catching up done this week. For a sneak peek, I've got a trip to Paris and showing my dad around the area to come, and that's only  what happened in the last two weeks!

Bisous,

Sophia