"Mal habillée"

I have a cold at the moment. Quite a bad one actually. I have been getting through a whole mini-packet of tissues at an average day at work and I cannot go to sleep without a loo roll and a bottle of water next to my bed. Annoying but I will get over it. I was a fairly sickly child, it is quite normal for me to be a bit under the weather more times than most in any given year. But as long as I remember not to leave the house without some tissues, a bottle of water and some Nurofen I can function like the rest of society and everyone else with their normal, healthy immune systems seems to fight successfully against catching my cold off me, lucky them!

But it has come to my attention, and not for the first time in France, that the French have absolutely no sympathy for the sick (not that I go round moaning about being ill but still) unless you are actually sick enough to go to the doctors. If you have a prescription the French will rally round you to go and get it for you coz you must be too sick to go to the pharmacy by yourself if you were sick enough to go to the doctors. But a common cold, they don’t wanna hear about it.

“Eugh. I’m sick of this cold,” I exasperated to my flatmate as I walked to the bathroom for the 100^th time to get some tissue.

“You’ve got a cold because you were mal habillée at the picnic at the weekend.”

…

The next day at work.

“Ça va?” one of my colleagues asks as we wait in line to use the photocopier.

“Yea, I’m not bad, just got a bit of a cold,” I reply.

“That’s coz you’ve been mal habillée all week,” she responds.

Mal habillée translates as “badly dressed” and I think it can mean “badly dressed” as in “I don’t like your outfit” but also as in “you are not sufficiently dressed” and I’m fairly sure that in both these conversations what my flatmate and colleague were saying were “you are not wearing enough clothes for the weather and that is why you have a cold”.

Right!

First of all it is a myth that you get a cold from not wearing a jumper in the snow or not wearing a coat in the rain. And second of all, I was not mal habillée! It is true I have been wearing summer dresses all week (but still with tights and a light jumper) but that’s because the temperatures have ranged from 17 to 27 degrees! I have been wearing summer dresses because it is hot here in Dijon at the moment!!! Not that the French seem to have realised that, they are still going round in coats, scarves and boots!

Another colleague, who has just come back from a trip to England in the same breath told me what lovely weather they had in England when they were there and how shocked they were to see girls in summer dresses and men playing football in parks with their tops off. “Well, yes,” I replied “that is quite normal when the weather is nice. “But it still spring,” she said, “in France we don’t get the summer dresses out until it’s at least 30 degrees.”

If we did that in England we could be waiting a long time I thought!

Here's proof of how lovely its been here in Dijon all week. Me, Linsday and Kirsty went for icecream on Thursday:

“J’ai parlé trop aujourd’hui”

A lot of my students went on a school trip to England last week and as well as taking in the sights of York, Hull and Cambridge (strange choices of cities if you ask me) they spent a day in a school. Today, their first day back at school, they were only too delighted to tell me what a fantastic time they had in England. Which was wonderful to hear, many of these students are often very negative about my country and our language (mainly because they haven’t been to England so are basing all their opinions on negative stereotypes and also because they all find English harder to learn than Spanish so are never that thrilled to find themselves in English class.) But today they were all delights to teach as they arrived at class with new found motivation and drive to learn English and they were all only too happy to speak to me in English because I was asking them this week’s hot topic “how was the trip to Yorkshire?”

In my euro class (that is students who have science and maths taught in English) we looked at maths education in the UK and France and did a comparison. We looked at some GCSE past papers which I was hoping to be a reasonable challenge for them. These students were in premier (equivalent to year 12, so AS standard) so I excepted them to be able to do the questions aimed at year 11s, so children a year younger than them, without too much trouble, but I was sure there was going to be some challenge, partly with the vocabulary and partly with the style of the questions perhaps. But five minutes later they had concluded that maths is easy in the UK! This filled me with much amusement as while personally I was reasonably good at maths in year 11, I got 75% in this particular GCSE past paper they were looking at, but I would in no way consider the maths education in the UK to be easy!

One of them had also been in to a Food Technology lesson which they thought was a laughable subject. (They may have some reason – there’s some franglais for you!) But then it gave me an easy A* at GCSE so I’m not about to complain about it as a subject!

The thing that struck them the most was that we stop ‘general education’ at the age of 16, and even then it’s not that general because at GCSE level English, maths, science and often a language, IT and RE are compulsory but after that we will have 3-4 options of subjects like geography, a second language and technologies. Where as in France they continue ‘general education’ right up until the age of 18 (if of course they haven’t left school at 16), there are 3 strands of the baccalaureate so there is a little bit of variation in subjects, topics studied within subjects and how many hours of each subject but every student still does French, maths, science, languages, geography/history, and philosophy and compulsory sport even continues up to the age of 18! (My last PE lesson was in year 11 – so when I was 16!)

Me and my students couldn’t come to definitive conclusion whether the baccalaureate or A levels (the exams we do in the UK at the age of 18 in 3-4 subjects) are better. Some of them thought it was awesome that all I studied between the ages of 16 and 18 was French, Russian, philosophy and English (the science and maths haters in the class clearly!) Some seemed to think that as a result of A level English people will be stupid because they won’t know enough about maths, science and history (3 subjects that the French seem to, perhaps rightly, regard very highly).

All in all, today was a very good day of debate between our two education systems with my French students. As one of the girls walked out the classroom I heard her say to a friend “I spoke lots today”. Good, little girl! That was the point of my lesson!

Ma Vie Dijionaise!

It has come to my attention that I only write a blog post when something dramatic happens – a holiday to Spain or a day trip to Paris, for example. But if I think about it what happens every day is dramatic. I am living in France. I am speaking French every day. I am teaching (a career I once thought was my life’s vocation, now I’m not so sure, but that’s beside the point!) Life right now is dramatic and so unlike life back home. Never again will I have the winning combination of money and free time to enjoy life to the max. (As superficial as money is, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a bit of luxury in life.)

7 things that are everyday occurrences in Ma Vie Dijionaise but that really are quite dramatic compared to life back home:

1.

Here:

My students decide since that half the school is on a school trip to England that they should be on holiday too so don’t turn up to my lesson (no big deal, I’d do the same in their position) so I text my friend Kirsty “Hey, I have no students so I’m free this afternoon, wanna do something, my school is not far from your house”. Reply: “I’m at Lindsay’s but we were gunna go to Ikea and just look around.” Result: we spend the afternoon in Ikea walking around the fake studio flats they have (just like in 500 Days of Summer) and the buy ice creams (for 50 centimes from a funky machine) and sit on the grass soaking up the sun.

Back home :

Lecture’s cancelled? Thank god, I’m behind with work anyway, better go home and do it!

2.

Here:

“I quite fancy some new clothes, I don’t need any but I quite fancy some.” Off I go to H&M!

Back home:

I quite literally have ruined every pair of jeans I own with coffee (spilt on myself at work) but I do not have a penny to my name to buy some more.

3.

Here:

It’s sunny! Let’s go and sit in a cute little French cafe and sit outside, eat ice cream and coo at adorable French children riding on an old fashioned carousel and in no way be rushed by the waiter to leave even though we’ve been there 2 hours and only bought one thing.

Back home:

It looks nice outside, shame I’m inside writing an essay!

4.

Here:

We haven’t been out for dinner in while (like it’s been a few weeks) let’s go and have a meal of snails, frogs legs, crème brulée and Burgundy wine (no word of a lie that is what we eat, how French are we?)

Back home:

Can I afford to but myself something vaguely exciting for dinner at Budgens? Probably not! Better go home to a meal of pasta and sauce then!

5.

Here:

Its 4pm on a Friday and we have literally nothing to do until Monday afternoon (our next lesson, even then we’re only at school for a few hours) let’s go to the lake this weekend and have a picnic.

Home:

Its 4pm on a Friday and I’m still at work, gunna be here til 8pm and then I’ve gotta go home and do a Russian translation tonight coz I don’t have time to do it this weekend as I’ve got an essay for French to write.

6.

Here:

Its 8am on a Friday and I am buying a Suisse (a flat shaped pain au chocolat) for my breakfast and a baguette for my lunch and the bread will be the most delicious freshest bread you’ve ever tasted.

Back home:

Its 8am and I will be having cereal for my breakfast (if someone in the house has remembered to buy milk, otherwise nothing) and as per usual lunch will be snatched at Ground between a lecture and a shift at work.

7.

Here:

“Katie - it’s your American flatmate from first year I’m gunna be in Paris next week, let’s meet up!” Minutes later the one hour forty-five minute train journey is booked. Spontaneous day trip in Paris – here I come.

Back home:

What does central London look like? It’s been so long since I’ve left Mile End I barely remember what the rest of London looks like, let alone another city!

Ok so maybe I have just painted a rather depressing image of my life at university, and it’s really not bad! Last year was wonderful, so wonderful I didn’t wanna leave for the year abroad (well I’m eating my words now!) But that was just a flavour of how dramatically different, in a so beautifully brilliant way, my life here in Dijon is compared to Mile End! (Nevertheless – Lauryn, Emma and Vicky I am super psyched for our girly Mile End pad next year!!!!!!!!!!!)

But I will miss moments like this:

And sights like this:

I HEART Dijon!

Monday Morning in Madrid!

Imagine the scene, I am sat on the metro, it is 6am on a Monday morning in Madrid which is not only the capital of Spain but a European capital renowned world over for, amongst other things, its fashion, would you expect I would see?

• Busy commuters on their way on work in slick suits
• A crowded train with everyone rammed up against each other
• Everyone with their nose in the free paper so they don’t have to speak to anyone?

No! Is the answer! This is what you see in London and what I can easily imagine you would see in Paris. But, this is Spain! And how little I clearly knew about Spain’s attitude to life (which is a great one I might add, just as long as you’re not trying to get anything done).

The train was not packed first of all, I had a seat! I rarely get a seat on the tube in London, least of all at 6am – which I might add would a bit a little late for some London office workers to be starting their commute to work. The average journey to work in London takes an hour. 6am is the first train in Madrid, and the last is somewhere around 3am! (Because,of course, that fits in perfectly with the Spanish hours of partying! The Metro to and from the club – oh the life of luxury!) In London the tube closes around midnight and opens at 5.30am. So you use the tube to get to the club but then it’s the nightbus all the way home! Because, let’s face it, in London you’re gunna be tucked up in bed by 3am after a night out – the party has only just started at that time in Madrid.

And if anyone on this train was going to work instead of just coming back from a night’s clubbing then they certainly weren’t dressed like it! Unlike us, the French don’t especially dress up for work. Most of my colleagues wear jeans to work every day. Can you imagine a teacher wearing jeans in the UK? And I’m willing to accept this rule applies in Spain; maybe it’s a main land Europe thing? But then surely in Paris, in the swish offices around the Champs-Elysées, they wear suits to work? Yes surely! And so surely they do in Madrid? Apparently not! Either that or literally no one was going to work at 6am. From my long-weekend experience in Spain it would appear the average day never starts before 10am.

Also, no noses in free newspapers ignoring everyone either. Very few people, in fact I would say nobody was reading a newspaper or a book; no one was doing emails on their Blackberry/iPhone; no one was as much as looking at jotted notes in a notebook to prepare for the days meeting. No! They were all either sleeping (partying for 12 hours solid tends to make you tired) or they were chatting in that very friendly way Spanish people do which involves shouting across people!

La vie Parisienne

This is the sort of image I imagine when I think of 'la vie Parisienne'


Quelques remarques about my day in Paris:

1. I caught what was clearly the commuter train (8am direct TGV Dijon-Paris) so as you can imagine it was rammed, so people clearly sat wherever they could, so it caused much amusement watching people play musical chairs as people with reserved seats asked people who had sat wherever to move. I had my own amusement when a man asked me:
- Excusez moi, madame, vous avez quelle place?
(Excuse me, madame, what seat number are you ?)
- Attends (the informal of ‘wait’, which I very quickly corrected to the formal version of ‘wait’, attendez, when I speak French its normally with people my own age so I have become a bit out of practice at using the formal version of imperatives!). Moi, j’ai 24
- Alors, on a un problème, vous avez voiture 4, place 24 et moi, j’ai voiture 4, place 24
(Well then, we have a problem, you are carriage 4, seat 24 and I am carriage 4, seat 24.)
- Oui, désolée, mais, vous avez un billet pour demain
(Yes, sorry, but you have a ticket for tomorrow.)
- Oh, mince !
(A very polite way of expressing his annoyance at the situation.)

I imagined that he was most likely going to Paris for a one day business meeting so I imagined him ringing the office to make out like it was their fault that he was a day early so wangling a new return train ticket and a night in a hotel. Then thinking, “well, why not, I’ve got the day in Paris, might as well make use of it” and then only after an morning of sightseeing and an afternoon of watching porn on the hotel’s free cable would he ring his wife to apologise profusely that he won’t be tucking up little Jean-Pierre in bed tonight but that he will make it up to Jean-Pierre by bringing back a keyring of the Eiffel Tower and up to her by showing her his new ideas for the bedroom after an afternoon of porn watching! (Such as the way in a French marriage, arguments are solved by sex!)


2. I like my American friends, I like lots of American people, but on the whole I hate American tourists!
As i sat in a Parisian cafe enjoying my book and a glass of Orangina (easily the most delicious fizzy drink ever!) I couldn’t help listening to the conversation between 3 American tourists that was happening on the table next to me.
First of all they had no idea what a pain au chocolat, crème caramel, éclair or tarte tatin were, granted these are French patisseries, but they are available everywhere and just about everyone knows what they are, even Microsoft Word English (U.K.) knows (they haven’t been underlined with a red line telling me they’re not words.)
Then they asked (in English of course) for a coffee. Now, of course, tourists ordering a coffee in France always cause amusement for the French because what most tourists ask for is a café au lait. Makes perfect sense right, we all learnt at school that ‘milky coffee’ in French is café au lait (and most British/American tourists want a milky coffee), right? Wrong! Café au lait is indeed a milky coffee in French but it’s the big milky coffee the French drink out of a bowl for breakfast, and breakfast only! A normal, day time, milk coffee is a café crème. But its fine, as a tourist you can order a café au lait in the middle of the day and get a café crème because the French waitress knows you’re a tourist but and will forgive you (or at least just laugh at you in her head.) But, no! These American tourists ordered a “coffee”, for fuck sakes! It’s not that hard to say café! At least make some bloody effort, you are in France after all!
Then the final straw was when they asked the waitress (in English, of course) “where is the Moulin Rouge?” You have a map in front of you, you know it’s in the Montmartre/Pigalle region (or at least you should – you’ve seen the film, haven’t you?), so get out your map and work out, all by yourself, the nearest metro stop! Don’t disturb the poor waitress by asking such an embarrassing question you might as well be wearing a neon flashing light that says “I am a tourist and I don’t know the first thing about France or the French.”
Now, perhaps, I’m being a little harsh here, obviously I am of the luxury of being able to speak French and knowing a fair bit about France but that doesn’t stop me finding complete ignorance and utter lack of trying to fit in to a foreign country annoying!


3. The Pompidou Centre and the Towers of the Notre Dame are really cool things to do and 2 things I hadn’t done in Paris before (pshhh, look at me, look who’s the tourist now!)


4. If you want really good hot chocolate (and I mean really good!) go to Maison du Chocolat on Boulevard de la Madeline.

Ready, steady..bake!

It was Thursday night, around 9pm, my housemate had gone out, I was home alone, I wasn’t tired enough to go to bed yet, but I couldn’t go out coz I had class at 8am the next day, so what did I do with this idle moment? Bake a cake! And here is the result:



It was a simple recipe of 1 pot of yoghurt, 1 pot of sugar, 3 pots of flour, 2 eggs and ¾ pot of oil and 3 teaspoons of baking powder for good measure plus I added a generous amount of lemon juice. Except I got a bit over excited by the magic of this 1 pot recipe and forgot that it was actually 3 pots of flour and only put in 1! So the result was that the cake was a bit too moist but delicious all the same. Plus if anyone’s wondering how I did the heart in the middle - I have a biscuit cutter in the shape of a heart so I put that on top the cake and melted some white chocolate and filled the cutter with the chocolate and then removed the cutter when the chocolate had set!

Then me and 3 friends demolished the cake over cups of tea. I also seem to have started a chain as my flatmate decided to bake a cake today using the same recipe but adding vanilla instead of lemon and this time in the shape of a rabbit! (We have an interesting collection of cake moulds chez-nous.) And then me and her demolished this second cake over cups of hot chocolate. Oh, la vie est belle!
Have a great ‘winter break’ everyone (well, for those working in France or on Reading week, sorry for those who have real jobs) and happy baking!

Love, L'amour...

And, so today is February 14th, that day apparently named after a Saint Valentine, but was probably actually just invented by Hallmark to make more money. And, so, I thought it only appropriate to do a lesson on this topic with my four groups of premiers (year 12s) today. I drew a heart on the board and got them to fill it with words they associated with a day, we then did a quiz on the ways Valentine’s Day in celebrated in the UK (the fact that girls can propose if it’s a leap year, how many text messages we send, how much money we spend etc.) and then we looked at proverbs about love and discussed which ones we liked and if we agreed with them or not. After the lessons I discussed with one of my colleague that the reason I thought the lesson has been successful, despite it being quite a lot to ask a group of 16-17 year olds to talk about love, was because I asked them to talk about the idea of love in general and not directly their own experiences of love. My colleague laughed and said “they’ve experienced so little [in love] yet they have opinions about in.” And this got me thinking about my own experience of ‘love’ when I was in year 12...

I was ‘dating’ this boy in the year above, which essentially meant hanging out together in the common room in free periods during the school day and then hanging out on ‘the green’ after school and at weekends. (That’s right, College Green, the grassy area outside the Council House in central Bristol, the very same ‘green’ that the teenagers of Skins hangout on). Until one day, after about two weeks of ‘dating’ he came to my house and we ‘made out’ (the kissing sort) for over an hour (I know this coz we listened to the whole Jack Johnston album in that time). In the silence that filled the album ending I (with his gentle encouragement) decided to insight taking things to the next step, my then my mother walked in at that point! So he went home! He then invited me to his house a few days later, clearly with the plan of finishing what we started, but my friend was ill that day so I covered her shift at work, then, a bit embarrassed about the whole thing I avoided him at school after that. A week or so later, he sent me a MySpace message of all things (those were the days, eh?) saying “his head wasn’t in the right place for him at the moment”! Tant mieux pour lui! (All the better for him!) Because his next girlfriend he ended up getting pregnant and now they live together with their lovely little girl and are engaged to be married.

But as I giggled to myself on my walk home today, remembering my innocent experience of love when I was in year 12, I reflected how well my premiers handled the topic today.

I personally have had a great Valentine’s Day – successful lessons and DVDs on offer at FNAC so me and my flatmate are now in for an evening of film watching and cake eating (I came home with DVDs and she came home with cake ingredients.) I hope you’ve all had a good Valentine’s Day too (despite the bus strikes in the city making it impossible to get anywhere and Dijon’s info screens with big flashing hearts and messages of love reminding us singletons quite how single we are!)

<3

Allez les Bleus!

As I lay in my bed (I was feeling too ill to step in to the hallway to our makeshift lounge), I shouted to my flatmate who was watching the France v. Brazil football match “on gagne?” (“are we winning?”) but then corrected myself to “vous gagnez?” (“are you, you the French, winning?”) That slip of the tongue, the “we”, including myself as a French person got me thinking could I live in France long term?

I can name at least two of the American assistants who are both looking in to jobs and college/university courses here in order to be able to stay in France for a least another year after the assistantship is over. (They are both assistants for the second time this year so if they are successful in their hunts for finding something for next year that’s at least 3 consecutive years they’re giving to France.)

Apart from the fact that I couldn’t do the assistantship for a second year because I have to go back to university next year but I don’t think I’d want to. Granted, I love it here and I have decided to work here (well not Dijon but in France) over the summer, but I still like knowing that come September I will be back in England, the country I was born.

One of the Americans’ reasons for wanting to stay is the quality of life France offers compared to, they feel, the USA, or at least the cities they live in.

Now, I can think of many reasons why France offers good quality of life, the following for starters:

1. 35 hour working week
2. 2 hour lunch breaks
3. Fantastic food and great coffee
4. Never being far from the countryside so you can enjoy the great outdoors
5. Great social benefits – housing, childcare etc.
6. National health care
7. Long summer holidays
8. The governments reimbursing 50% of your travel costs to work
9. The regular strikes meaning the country stops for a little bit so you get even more time off work
10. Great shopping....the list could go on!

But a lot of these benefits the UK has to offer too, as a fellow European country, and the sunny outdoors, shopping, cheese based dishes and cheap but good wine, well I can always hop on the eurostar for a visit!

Don’t get me wrong, I love France and I love the French language and it makes me very happy that I live here and that I speak their language every day and I’m in no rush to leave, there’s still a long time until the beginning of September when I will be coming back to England for good (or at least for the foreseeable future) but there’s nowhere like home!:)

Un weekend à Valance

In a similar fashion to last weekend I finished my Friday classes this week to hop straight on a train, this time to Valance. [That is Valance-sur-Rhône in France and not Valencia in Spain as one of my French friend’s thought I was going to when I said I was going to Valance. (Valance is Valencia in French.)]

My dear friend Anna picked me back from the train station and took me to her host family’s house. Her host family comprises of a mum and dad (who are quite young at only 27) and 4 (yes 4) beautiful little girls aged 6 years, 4 years, 2 years and 4 months. As I work in a secondary school and I don’t live in a host family I’ve had very little (if any contact) with young children during my time in France so I had a lot to learn. Like, what on earth is this toddler saying to me? I don’t speak baby language! I already knew faire dodo (go to beddy-byes) as my flatmate says it sometimes is she is feeling particularly sleepy, and therefore childish, before bed. And the word couche (nappy) had gone in from just wondering round supermarkets (and apparently finding myself in the Pamper aisle?!) And j’ai un bobo (I’ve got a baddy) was self explanatory as even English babies use that word. And thankfully anything else Anna or one of the older girls translated.

The other new cultural thing that I had to get used to was when people in Valance faire la bise (do the French greeting of kissing cheeks) they do 3 not 2! As I went to say ‘hello’ to the host dad and pulled away after 2 kisses he was like ‘oh, right, ok, only 2’. ‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, ‘its 3 here! Sorry, it’s only 2 in Dijon!’ ‘That’s ok,’ he smiled, ‘it’s only 2 in Paris too and that’s where I come from.’ Phew, he wasn’t offended!

Something else I learnt this weekend is that my spoken French isn’t quite as beautiful as it could be! I had already made a mental note not to use the likes of putain, merde, chienne, ça fait shit (if you don’t speak French that was just a nice collection of swear words for you) and made every effort to cut down my mon dieu! and jésus! usage as the Christian family that were so very kindly hosting me for the weekend wouldn’t have appreciated any swearing or blasphemy and anyway these words shouldn’t be said around children. But when I exclaimed that something was dégueulasse (slag for disgusting) the slightly shocked faces of the parents (there were no kids about at the time) followed by a laugh (thankfully they found it more funny than being offended) and then Anna saying “Katie! I don’t think we’re allowed to say that!” made me realise that I never use the more savoury (pun, get it?) word for disgusting – dégoûtant, but perhaps I should! After all, I am here to learn la lange de Molière and not the language of lycéens (secondary school students) in an inner-city comprehensive (which is apparently the type of language that is going in!) I mean I even thought it was appropriate to crack a joke defining the finer details of the fact that I would be domir avec (sleeping in the same proximity as) and not se coucher avec (sleeping with) Anna – that’s hardly tasteful after dinner chat!

Anyway, aside from discovering I could make my language a bit more tasteful one of the biggest advantages of being in Valance (apart from hanging out with the lovely Anna obviously!) was being down South! Down South where the sun shines and the birds sing and you have beautiful views of the mountains!

On Saturday, Anna and I took advantage of the lovely weather and went for a walk in the centre of town, looked round the sales and Anna showed me le Champs de Mars et le Kiosque Peynet and the Hôtel de Ville and the Parc Jovet and then we went ice skating with some of Anna’s friends. When Anna said “I’m not very good at ice skating” I agreed with her (saying “no, nor am I!”) and I’m not, I can’t stop, I can’t do anything exciting on the ice, I can just state forward at a reasonable speed. But at first Anna couldn’t actually skate at all but thanks to the help of a lovely Finish girl who probably came out of the womb ice skating Anna was whizzing the ice like everyone else by the end. When then went to one of Anna’s French friends house for an aggressive game of Mooing Families (or whatever the game is called) and some other fast paced games with colours and shapes we then went home for tartiflette and on Sunday we ate raclette – both local dishes based on cheese and I love cheese!

On Sunday we went to church which was more enjoyable than when me and Anna went to church in the Ukraine as my French is better than my Russian so I had much better chance of understanding the service and the songs! After lunch we went to the Château de Crussol which was the ruins of a chateau on top of a mountain, just outside Valence in the Ardèche. It was really fun tromping round the ruins and it was so beautiful on top the mountain with stunning views of the Ardèche and the Drôme and the river Rhône. It made me want the summer job I’ve applied for in the Ardèche even badly (I find out in 2 weeks if I’ve got it.) And it was wonderful to be in such different surroundings to the rural, but rural in a very different way region of Burgundy. And it was fantastic to catch up with Anna and discuss everything from our views on parenting, our philosophies on life and what we plan to do with our degrees and beyond!

On my last day in Valance me and Anna cooked a traditional roast dinner for a family as a thank you for hosting and cooking for me for the weekend (which I really did appreciate, they really were so lovely to me.) And then went for a nice walk along the Rhône before I caught my train back to (cold) Dijon!

From Paris with love...

Hôtel de Ville, Paris

Cathedral Notre Dame, Paris

Me by the Arch de Triomphe, Paris
Didn't really think through the pink hat, yellow tights outfit!

Me outside the Sacre Coeur, Paris
There's that colourful ensemble again!

Some things I Iearnt about Paris this weekend:

• It’s smaller than London but there are a lot more people!
• Its metro system is much more confusing to navigate than London tubes but is much faster and much more reliable and isn’t that far underground so your mobile works in most stations!
• The absolutely massive stores of Louis Vouton , Channel etc. on the Champs-Elysées are very alluring, much more so than the shops on the Kings Road.
• Everything is very far away from each other but thankfully the taxis are a lot cheaper than in London.
• It’s really quite a scary place, but man it’s beautiful and exciting!

Some things I learnt about myself this weekend

• For everything I will miss about Russian as a subject (I have dropped it from my degree title) I will not miss the ‘office politics’ of the department.
• Some of my classmates think my voice is annoying when I go on a rant about something in lectures (and who can blame them? I bet it is annoying!) But apparently I get away with it coz I seemingly know what I’m talking about (questionable.)
• Apparently my attitude to university life (that I am reasonably hard working, and really quite capable but I am not willing to kill myself over my degree coz I quite like having a life too!) hasn’t gone unnoticed by my classmates.
• My ex was fit (obviously I was already well aware of this fact but it was quite nice, in a flattering sort of way, to hear that other people thought this too.)
• Some people at university discuss my figure/shape in the positive way on a regular basis (well that’s very nice, shame I haven’t been swimming training in a very long while so now I’m super unfit!)

So it was Friday early evening and I was very tired from a long day at school but I hopped on a TGV at Dijon Ville than would zoom me to Paris Gare de Lyon to be met by Sam, Lauryn and Vicky, all friends from university. We then took the metro to our hotel it the rougher end of Montmartre – the sort of hotel you could imagine seedy men hiring as the location of sex with a prostitute. But it following my Dad’s rule of thumb on judging hotels (is the shower hot and powerful and is the bed reasonably comfortable?) It passed! The general plan was to have a little pre-drink catch up then grab the metro to an Irish bar near Notre Dame for some drinks and food. What actually happened is that it got quite drunk in our hotel room (got the “please be quiet knock” from the man on reception) and tossed about banter about our Irish families (I was the only one who could not add to this banter). Then quite drunk we walked down the red light district to take a photo of the Moulin Rouge, obviously and then got a kebab and went to bed.

Then at the respectful hour of 11am me and Sam set off to see Paris’s sights (Vicky and Lauryn had gone to Disneyland for the day.) We started at the Sacre Coeur where we met a friend of mine – Ed. Then we went on to the Arch de Triomphe/Champs-Elysées, Hôtel de Ville and finally Notre Dame, with regular stops for food and coffee of course, we are in France after all!

Later me and Sam met Lauryn and Vicky in MacDo and like the QM massive we are went to meet our friend Kyle for his birthday celebrations. However the bar was busy and it was impossible to get served so we went to a quieter bar and had a proper catch up. Lauryn and Vicky then went back to the hotel coz Disney had tired them out but me, Kyle and Sam were in for the long haul! All of our party (including my friend Ed) went on to a club except for me, Kyle, Sam, a Fab and a Ally decided to be more hardcore and get the metro to Montparnasse to a club called Mix for their gay night, however, unfortunately, gay meant men only so we hailed some taxis to Folie’s Pigalle (not far from the Moulin Rouge). I should have guessed what might happen next as Sam has told us the night before that this was the very club she lost Kyle on another night out!

The night started well, Kyle generously paid for us to have our own table and a bottle of vodka and while I sat there being confused as to who was a girl, who was a boy and who was a tranny and whether this club’s main market was gay or straight (and admiring quite a lot of fake boobs) we enjoyed yet more banter and good chat.

But then, Ally, Kyle’s American friend, passed out in her seat coz she was stupidly drunk so quite obviously this was our que to go home! But as we got outside Kyle realised that Fab was still inside with his ticket for the coat check. So Kyle went back in while me and Sam propped Ally up on a street corner giving the police a “everything’s fine” smile every time they circled past and one time when they wound down the window we actually had to tell them in words “tout va bien”. Except tout didn’t va bien coz Kyle was nowhere to be seen and we were cold and fed up of waiting for him. The very nice doorman let me back in to look but I didn’t find him. Then he let me in again and I found him and explained that he really needed to hurry the fuck up coz Ally was in no fit state and we needed help getting her home. So I waited outside, and when he still didn’t come out, I was let in a third time, this time Kyle came as far as the coat check queue but then never actually came outside so I went back a fourth time to be told by the doorman that it wasn’t worth his job to let me back in a fourth time but that my friend had gone back in the club. Fantastic! Me and Sam now had to get a girl we didn’t even know to a bed.

Ally did not know which bus to get home or where her bus stop was so she decided to get a taxi. At first I rang after her screaming “no, you can’t go home by yourself, you’re in no fit state” but then I realised that no taxi was actually gunna take a girl that drunk and besides she couldn’t even remember where she lived! So for a few moments I mildly enjoyed watching her try and get a taxi. So while I was on the other side of the road propping her up and telling every pervy man that walked past and tried to offer us a lift home, each trying to convince me that they were very “respecteux”, yea right! At first I tried telling them “on est bien, elle est bien, tout va bien, on juste attend nos amis, on est bien, vraiment!” Except everything wasn’t fine, there I was in a dodgy part of Paris looking after a drunk girl I didn’t even know so the colder and more tired I got I reverted to telling these me to “fuck off”. Which usually led to them giving me a rant about the rude British, normally I would defend my country but as long as they fucked off I didn’t care what they said.

Meanwhile Sam is on the other side of the road and gets told by a woman to move coz she’s stealing her clients. Turns out this woman is a prostitute and I was very grateful to Sam who in the middle of having a slanging match in French with a whore shouted over to me “are you alright?” seeing the group of men that were surrounding us. Yes I was fine, either “tout va bien” or “fuck off” was getting rid of these men no problem, but was Sam ok, I would have been well scarred it a French whore was shouting at me!

So as it was evidentially clear that Kyle was never gunna materialise it was time to take Ally to a bed. So we zigzagged down (Ally was in no fit state to walk properly) Avenue Pigalle towards our hotel, all the while wondering how we were gunna sneak Ally in to our room without having to pay for an extra guest. When we arrived, at around 4am the man on reception we clearly too blind with tiredness to notice that we had an extra guest when he buzzed us in. So we stumbled up the 2 flights of stairs, Ally fell asleep immediately on the bed and Sam very kindly offered to sleep on the floor, so I made her a make-shift bed of my coat, towels and a spare blanket and then I too collapsed in to bed.

We were woken at 11am by Lauryn and Vicky coming to say their goodbyes. And then, as we had to check out by 12, we too gathered our things, checked out and walked to the metro, we said goodbye to Ally as she went to take line 2 home and we took line 4 to Gare de Nord and then the RER D to Gare de Lyon, grabbed some lunch, giggled about the nights events (which out of the cold are pretty funny) and then I look my train back to Dijon and Sam took a RER back to Corbeil and we parted with promises to see each other soon!

For Sam's side of the story.

Dijon, c'est chouette!

This weekend my friend Sam from university who is doing her assistantship just outside Paris came to visit me and so of course we did the number one touristy thing to do in Dijon – le parcours de la chouette (a walking tour of Dijon where you following little owls that are on the floor.) And when Sam pointed out how many times I said the word chouette in our one day together it got me thinking how Dijonaise I’ve become (or at least how Dijonaise I like to think I’ve become.)

Chouette for those who don’t know means both owl and cool (as in wicked/sick/however kids speak these days) in French. The owl is one of the symbols of Dijon so there is many a blague to be had with “Dijon, c’est chouette”. Or when my flatmate saw my owl themed costume that I wore to my birthday party she commented “tu es chouette colco” (you are cool/an owl, flatmate).

The other reason I am becoming Dijionaise (apart from I crack the chouette blague regularly) is that I couldn’t possibly ever imagine buying wine that wasn’t a Burgundy red, ever again!

I also got thinking about language and despite the massive leaps and bounds I have made with my French I still find myself making embarrassing mistakes that even a year 7 would know (such as pas de, it’s not pas d’un/une/du/de la it’s just pas de with not article, the same goes for beaucoup de). I know this, year 7s know this, yet I still insist on making this mistake several times a day!

But anyway apart from making the chouette joke one too many times, one too many glasses of Burgundy wines and one too many elementary errors in my French I had a super chouette (sorry couldn’t resist) weekend!

I managed to have 2 fairly wild nights out by Dijon standards, yes, that’s right, two, in two days. When was the last time you did that Katie?

I have also spent a small fortune on break plans which involve London, Bristol and Merida (in Spain) and I’m hoping to add skiing to the list too!

Until the next time, friends.....

Bonne Année!

Bonne Année!

Happy New Year!

It has come to my attention that I have not written a blog post for a while so I will attempt to update you all on everything that has been going on since my last post.

The Christmas lights and decorations went up around the city around the end of November (and still haven’t come down!) We kicked off the festive celebrations with the official turning on of the lights which involved a fireworks display to the tune of drumming which was a bit bizarre partly because the fireworks were so close to the Palais des Ducs which rose health and safety questions in my head but the French didn’t seem to mind. Also it was pretty hard to see the fireworks once they got more than about 10 foot in the air because the sky was so grey. However it was lots of fun and we mainly just drank vin chaud and looked round the small but still plenty of fun Christmas market that Dijon has got going on.

The weather has been added to the festive feeling as we had temperatures as low as -6 and a lot of snow. It was very exciting to have proper snow for such a long period of time (although the cold did get to me as I did not pack for such Arctic temperatures). But, now, come January the snow has turned to rain, which does at least mean its above zero!

In the weeks before the Christmas holidays I managed 2 trips. One to Lyon to see the Illumination Festival and one to Strasbourg for the Christmas markets. Lyon was wonderful, as ever (probably my favourite French city) and provided a great opportunity for me to hangout with my flatmate and her friend, and therefore speak lots of French! Strasbourg was awesome and it was really interesting to be in a French city with such a German influence.

Then after rolling out a fairly successful lesson on the topic of Christmas it was time to go home for my Christmas holidays. I spent the first 3 days on my university campus, staying in my brother’s halls which was lots of fun and I managed to catch up with some familiar faces and to meet some new ones and just generally have a great time partying in London. And then it was time to go home home, and after a slightly stressful trek across London and a delay at Victoria Coach station me and my brother made it back to Bristol. And a few days later (after delayed planes) my grandparents joined us from Cyprus and my Dad came back from Australia. Christmas was wonderful and it was lovely to be with my family and friends and to speak English again. It was also, of course, my 22^nd birthday. But shortly after the New Years Eve celebrations it was time to come back.

It was weird at first as I kept thinking people in the street were speaking English, when obviously they were speaking French but as my French flatmate greeted me at the door and we exchanged notes from the holidays I was relieved to find that I can speak French!

My flatmates are both at home this weekend so I was concerned I would be bored/lonely but on Friday Julie (the other assistant at my school) came round for lunch and then we met up with some other assistants for free tea and coffee at Ikea, yesterday it was the birthday of one of the American assistants so we all went out to a bar and I think everyone got drunker than they intended! And then today despite my hangover I cooked a Sunday roast (with trifle for dessert) for a few friends and then we watched a film – a lovely lazy Sunday! And tomorrow both my flatmates come back, yay!

Avoir la gueule de bois = To be hungover

So let me tell you a story that begins with me sat at my computer feeling rather exhausted after making it all the way to the university campus and back and ends with me rolling in to my apartment drunk at 5.30am....

Yesterday I went to the university campus to talk to a man about acting in some educational videos which I’ve been encouraged to participate in as one of the teachers at my school is one of the editors. Last time I went to the university campus it was for the first training day and a coach drove me there so I was slightly concerned that I would get lost having to find my own way there – but I made it! And when I came back I turned on my computer to ponder what to do with the rest of my day – watch ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ or actually start my uni work for once? Only to see a message on that useful social network site whose name begins with an F (but I couldn’t be sure as I don’t check it 5 times a day!) from Rosie, (the British Council Assistant from last year at the same school as me who I befriended virtually in the summer and rather stalked in order to find out about life in Dijon before coming here. But it’s ok, Rosie, I know you stalk me too, you told me yourself you’ve read my blog!) The message was to say that she was in Dijon and would I like to meet for coffee in an hour or two and come to a house party/gathering tonight. The answer to both these questions was obviously YES!

We went for coffee/hot chocolate in my favourite cafe and had a lively chat about all the teachers at Hippolyte. I can only imagine that it was a bit weird for Rosie to hear all about the teachers and students at the place she worked at for the best part of a year but since then has been to Madrid and gone back to uni so often it must feel like a life time ago (how weird it is to think that the roles will be reversed in twelve months time!)

I can now add another person to my growing list of friends at the University of Bristol (the list stands at 5 people, 4 of which I have met in Dijon). Now as a local I obviously have certain stereotypes about University of Bristol students – namely that they are all really rahh (that is that the girls wear Pearls Pumps and Pashminas or Uggs boots and they dress in Jack Wills and they went to private school and they’re probably quite rich) and they go out to places like (the Lizard) Lounge, PooNaNas and Umbargo or just generally anywhere on the Triangle and don’t mix with the plebs who go to Syndicate or Panache. And while stereotypes wouldn’t exit if they didn’t hole some truth, I can happily confirm that all the Bristol students I know are lovely lovely people who have contributed in a very positive way to my Dijon experience. So I might think twice now next time I’m out in Bristol and some girl is drunk on the floor before tutting ‘eugh, Bristol students’ and I might instead tut ‘eugh, idiot’.

So now we’ve got that out the way – on to the soiree! After coffee I went home for some dinner and to watch some film which was basically just about getting high and although I was very comfy on the sofa I forced myself to go out determined not to miss an opportunity to meet some real French people who live in Dijon. The gathering was being hosted by Rosie’s (French) boyfriend and his flatmates and friends in the flat Rosie lived in last year. I didn’t really know what to expect but everyone was so lovely to me and kept on asking me lots of questions and keeping me involved in the conversations. And several drinks later we were dancing round the room in costume to the classics of Britney, Spice Girls and Michael Jackson. I had a brilliant time and it was great to finally meet Rosie in person and to meet all her lovely French friends and I rolled in at 5.30am feeling very drunk but happy to have met some lovely people and with a promise that there will be another soiree soon I am finally starting to live like a student in Dijon!

God Bless France and its Bank Holidays!

I’ve come to accept that you essentially do nothing as a language assistant. Twelve hours a week is the minimum number of hours a week I work at the on-campus coffee shop when I’m at uni and that’s on top of my studies and all my swimming and theatre stuff. It was also the number of hours I fitted in working at my local supermarket on top on studying for my A levels and partying too much for a minor (but then, hey, I come from Bristol!) But twelve hours a week when you have nothing else to do is really nothing!

My timetable dictates that I have the odd few hours during the week and then a full day Friday which means I do nothing all week and then I come home stressed and tired on a Friday like the rest of the working world. Sure, there is prep to do but as a walking-talking resource my prep mainly involves finding an article and then writing a few questions to prise a few English sentences out of French teenagers – easy. I also privately tutor a boy once a week which takes more prep as the lesson is 2 hours and not 1 hour as my classes at school are. I have to admit that one of the reasons I have it so easy is because I am at a lycee (sort of like Sixth Form) so my main role is to just get the kids talking and practicing their English – which is already of a fairly good level. I’m sure if I was at a college (years 7-10) or an ecole maternelle (primary school) I would have to be much more creative about my lessons and spend more time planning as things like games and songs would be more important.

So what do I do when I’m not doing the world’s easiest job you ask? I enjoy myself! I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about enjoying myself so much when my French flatmates work so hard. One of my flatmates is a first year medic and spends all her time revising for the concours which is basically a load of exams and interviews to see if you can cut it as a medic – sort of like an Oxbridge entrance interview on crack. In France it’s not all that hard to get in to uni as long as you pass the bac (sort of like A levels) but then your first year sucks as you have to prove that you can make the cut. I’m told once first year is over and you’ve (hopefully) passed the concours its all plain sailing on your route to become a doctor – how can this be? Doesn’t it just get harder?!?! So when I’m sleeping my housemate is already up and revising. My other housemate is a sixth year medic and so is already basically a doctor so he gets up early and comes back late and works super hard at a hospital (but when he’s not at work we hang out and watch movies which is nice.)

In contrast to my flatmates I spend my days shopping, going for coffee or meals out with friends, going to the cinema and being a tourist and I spend my evenings in bars.

Now on to the title of this entry – only 2 weeks ago did we have a week off for Toussaint (All Saints’) and then this Thursday we had more time off because it was Remembrance Day (that’s a public holiday in France) and then Friday was a pont (lit: bridge, but what is means is that coz the Bank Holiday fell on a Thursday we get Friday off.) I don’t have classes on Tues and Weds anyway so this week I just had class on Monday! Awesome! So what did I do with another week off?

On Tuesday I went clothes shopping. On Wednesday I had tutoring and then met up with a friend to make a vague start on our Year Abroad Project then went to a bar in the evening. On Thursday I went to the cinema to see Les Petits Mouchoirs – if you speak French I can highly recommend this film! I welled up at the end but my friend Kirsty was full on blubbing! It was a very sad film but also hilarious in different parts – it was fab! On Thursday me and another friend went up the Dijon Tower and despite the bad weather had a fine view of the city and then we went for hot chocolate to warm our souls up! Then it was one of the other assistants birthday so we went out to yet another bar. Another assistant friend had a friend from uni who is doing a work placement in Paris over for the weekend but as he’s not allowed guests his friend stayed at mine for 2 nights. After coming back at 2am-ish me and Ed stayed up talking until gone 4am and then had to get up at 9am as I had a train to catch! So despite being very very tired I met Kirsty, Will, Lindsay and Julie (and later 2 assistants from Auxerre) at the station to go to Besancon – a nearby city. We climbed up a massive hill to go to an old fort thing which has been turned in to a zoo – I felt like a proper kid getting excited by all the ‘ammimals’ but it was lots of fun and I had a lovely steak at the overpriced restaurant! We then wondered around the town which was very pretty and reminded us in parts of Dijon but we also counted our lucky stars that we were placed in Dijon and not Besancon! We then returned for yet another night out. This was meant to be a ‘wild’ night out but what actually happed was we enjoyed the cheap cocktails then quite a few people bailed understandably due to tiredness and then us ‘hardcore’ lot went to a night club but didn’t get in coz one of the guys was wearing a (very nice) polo shirt and not a shirt shirt (wtf, its Dijon not London! Why the strict dress code?) Anyway we were so knackered we were delighted by the thought of bed, we came back and slept like babies! And that brings you up to speed! All in all a very fun weekend!

Being a language assistant for your year abroad would be the equivalent to a year off to travel and party in France why being paid to do it if it wasn’t for the fact that I also have uni work to do while I’m here. And while I have more than enough time to do it I have next to no motivation to do it coz the alternatives to staying in and writing an essay are just too appealing! I really will start one day – honest – some of it’s in soon! Ahh!

Bouger

I’m sure anyone learning a new language has experienced the moment when you learn a new word and then you hear it everywhere and then you’re not sure how you ever really lived before without knowing that word.

Most recently for me that word is bouger, it has never come up in school or uni but now I’m in France I must hear it at least 3 times a day. It means ‘to move’ or ‘to move around’ and can be used a wide range of contexts. For example my landlady said to her friend the other day ‘Katie, elle bouge beaucoup’ (lit: ‘Katie, she moves around alot’) meaning ‘Katie, she travels alot’. Or I’ve heard it being used in the context of the sort of dancing you might do at a night club. I’ve even just heard it to replace the verb aller (to go). When I asked a French person about this word she told me it’s au courant which is probably why they never taught it to us at school or uni but I can now safely say it is part of my French lexis. But I bet by the time I return to French classes at uni it will be out of fashion!

I have been doing a lot of bouge-ing recently. This week we are on Toussaint (All Saints) holiday (god bless France and its Catholic holidays) so I kindly took up the invitation from my French assistant from when I was in year 13 to spend a few days with her in Lyon and then a few friends from Dijon (other assistants) joined me for a few more days in Lyon and then we went to Annecy. In sum, Lyon is amazing with loads to see and it was very exciting being in such a busy city after being in the relativly small city for Dijon for a month. Lyon - c'est une ville qui bouge! (Lyon - it's a happening city!) Annecy's main attraction is a stunning lake at the foot of the Alpes and was a complete contrast to Lyon but also absolutely supurb! Many things happened on this holiday but for now I would like to share just a few moments with you:

1. I attended my first French dinner party. Patricia (my French assistant from year 13 who I stayed with in Lyon) and her boyfriend hosted another couple for dinner. The prep for the food started at 5pm yet the guests didn’t arrive until 9pm, we didn’t start with the aperitifs until 10pm and after 3 different types of snack foods, 1 bottle of wine and 2 bottles of strawberry and rhubarb alcoholic liquor (a Picardy speciality – the region where Patricia is posted as an English teacher) we finally sat down for our starter at midnight. After 4 courses (starter, main, cheese and desert – that’s right in France the cheese course is before desert, which makes much more sense than the other way round quite frankly!) and several more bottles of wine we had our after dinner coffee at around 2 am! (Sadly there were no after dinner mints!) What can I say, the French take eating seriously!
   
2. When we turned up for our coach from Lyon to Annecy (in good time I might add) it was clear that there were more than 1 coach worth of people waiting for the coach. In true French style there was much pushing and shoving to get on the one coach and no real form of a orderly queue and as the bus driver waved goodbye to us and the rest of the other stranded passengers (bastard!) it became evident that there would be no second coach and that they had just sold way more tickets than there were seats (a little bit of common sense and planning could have avoided this problem surely?) We were told that we would just have to wait two hours (!!) for the next coach and then 5 minutes later we were told that we could get the train to somewhere else in Rhone-Alpes (the name escapes me right now) and then get a bus from there to Annecy which is what we did all the way laughing at the stupidly of the French’s lack of fore planning.
   
3. Our train from Lyon to Dijon was delayed and French for delay/late is retard and despite knowing this word since year 7 nothing stopped us from finding the word retard flashing on the screen over and over again hilarious! Vivre la France and your silly words!

Today (in case you didn’t know is Halloween) and we had all been told that the French don’t celebrate Halloween. And apart from a few chocolate shops (yes that’s right they have many chocolate shops in France, not like England with your chains of Thortons and Hotel Chocolat, no, France has lots of independent chocolatires) selling pumpkin shaped sweets and the odd bar with a few pathetic Halloween decorations, it would appear that this statement is true. However at the very early hour of 4pm (before it had even got dark) a small group of dressed-up children turned up at my door and didn’t even say anything that resembled ‘trick or treat’ they just demanded bonbons, sadly I was unable to offer them any so they just sheepishly sulked off.

I celebrated Halloween this year by hosting my very own French dinner party (yes we had the appropriate 4 courses and bottleS of wine). It was so much fun to cook for people for the first time in ages and it was a lovely evening spent with people who are quickly becoming dear friends of mine and it was the perfect way to spend my last evening in the lovely house in Northern Dijon that has been my home for the last month as tomorrow I move to my apartment in the centre-ville.

Time for more bouge-ing!

Give the dog a Beaune!

At the weekend we went to Beaune. There was about twenty of us made up of English/American and Spanish assistants. The plan has been to go nice and early and while the rest of the group logged off Facebook to get a good night’s rest before getting up early I was still online when one of our group send an emergency message saying that the trains weren’t running until noon (coz of the strikes obviously! ) So I went to sleep safe in the knowledge that I in fact had a lie in, only to wake up to panicked texts from the others thinking they’d missed the train! Anyway we all managed to meet in the end and we made it to Beaune. Beaune is a town not far from Dijon and is on the list of ‘must sees in Burgundy’ mainly coz of its pretty appearance and good wine. And wine (and cheese) was what we went in search of! We went to the annual cheese and wine festival and for the bargain price of 12 euros we were handed a plate, knife and wine glass on entrance and encouraged to try as much wine and cheese as we wanted! Which we did! So feeling rather full and a little bit tipsy we left the festival with the intention of being tourists in Beaune but we were too cold to look at pretty buildings and too cheap to pay to go in to museums so instead we went to a cafe/bar and drank mulled wine with the promise to return to Beaune when the weather is warmer!

Perhaps because it is so cold here the most popular way to spend our free time has been to go to the cinema. In three weeks I have seen 3 films, this is more than I normally manage in a whole year! I have seen Mange, Prie, Aime (that’s Eat, Love, Pray) and I am now ready the sequel en francais , Inception which has now confirmed its place as one of my favourite films ever (I was able to follow the French version because I’ve already seen it in English!) And last night we saw the Social Network (in English because it would have been a crime to see it dubbed when it is a film that embodies our generation and thus so many cultural references would have been lost in translation.)

In other news, I’m still not all that further with my flat. I tried to get ‘une caution’ (a letter that confirms in the event I don’t pay my rent they will) from the bank but the admin takes 3-4 weeks to get one and I wanna move in at the end of this month! So my bank manager (that’s right I have my own French bank manager) suggested I offer 2-3 months rent in advance to show I’m serious. He even offered me an INTEREST FREE loan of 2000 euros to be paid back in 6 months to help me pay the rent which I thought was very generous of him but I’d rather not owe a French bank money if I can help it. The other problem is that the agency also require a pay slip to confirm that I am salaried but as we get paid a month in arrears I can’t get a pay slip until November! But the secretary of the Retorat (lady in charge of the Acedemie – or Local Educational Authority) did say she can write me a letter confirmed I salaried. So the plan is to turn up at the agency on Saturday with every bit of paper I can get my hands on, wave a bit of money at them and beg. But if it fails I’ve found another flat not asking for paperwork!

So I may have only been here 4 weeks but its half term already! And I am going to Lyon to stay with my French assistant from year 13! I wonder if I will stay in touch with some of my older students and host them in a few years time?!?!

And before I sign off, a word about the strikes....it’s actually crazy! Been going on for 7 days now, no buses after 8pm and huge demonstrations in the town centre every day! And when I say huge, I mean an absolute sea of people! And twice now the entrance to my school has been barricaded with bins on fire and riot police – which I find very entertaining!

Anyways its dinner time! Bye!

French administration

So basically I hate French administration! I thought that I was done with it for the year but no! I have submitted all the papers for a social security number, I have signed my life away at the school and I have successfully opened a bank account. The only thing I had left to do paper work wise was to gear myself up to troll through the requirements for the CAF (housing benefits) (and even then I was thinking I might not bother), right? Wrong!

So I’ve found an apartment! Yay! We all shout! Well apparently I can’t go ‘yaying’ yet. The apartment is lovely, a little pricey but in a perfect location and really spacious and homely and its sharing with a first year medic who seems a little studious for my liking but she seems really sweet and has promised to introduce me to all her friend friends and while she likes to work hard she does go out on Friday nights, win, win! And she’s happy for me to move in whenever and move out whenever and all I have to do is pop a cheque down to the agency each month for the rent, simple as! It would appear that we were both very wrong! Basically my (cross all fingers and toes, and pray a little bit too) new flatmate is on a 3 year lease with her cousin but her cousin in moving out (hence why I can move in) but the agency was on the understanding that I was going to take on the rest of the 3 year lease, not just stay until May!

“Houston, we have a problem!”

So me and Florelle (what a cool name by the way) are going to the agency at NINE AM on Saturday to BEG the agency to let me move in...Surely this can be resolved simply by Florelle promising to honour the 3 year lease and her finding a new flatmate when I move out to help her pay the rent? But knowing the French it will probably be much more complicated than that and they might even say no! (I’m praying – in a non-religious way – that this doesn’t happen!) But just in case it does, I’ve lined up another viewing (in an all boy house!)

So wish me luck....

So I live in Dijon now! "What?" you say...

Ok so it would appear that I am a really crap blogger as I never finished telling you readers (if I have any) about the rest of my Canada trip or about any of Edinburgh Fringe Festival. In sum, the rest of Canada blew my mind, the scenery in the Rookies is spectacular and I met loads of Aussies who I got really drunk with...Edinburgh...well...QMTC rocks! Our plays had fabulous audiences and rave reviews and I had a wonderful time teching Figs in Wigs and I ate too many battered sausages (and probably had one too many pints!)

So, guess what? I’m actually in France! After all the thinking, talking, worrying, crying I did and all the resentment and excitement (mainly resentment) I felt I’m actually on my year abroad!

And it’s fair to say that only the tiniest part of me wanted to come (and that’s only coz I wanna be fluent in French, not coz I wanted to leave my pretty near darn perfect live(d) in London and Bristol) and most of me didn’t want to go so I spent the whole lead up to this year in denial. And that means I did no form of research or planning. I just winged it...and do you know what? It’s turned out alright!

So, here I am living in Dijon, the capital of Burgundy – so yes you’ve guessed it, it’s all mustard and wine! But there’s more to Dijon than that! I’ve already been to a few churches and museums and there are plenty more where they came from! I am acquainting myself with the town (the French claim it’s a city, I’m not convinced), I have found the H&M (this is important), I have found my favourite spot to drink coffee and some nice restaurants to eat it (also important) and even a couple of bars but as of yet no clubs but I’m informed they do have them here! Dijon is adorable; it’s a nice sized city, about the size of the centre of Bath and just as charming. It’s also very French; I pity any tourists who don’t speak French who may come to Dijon...in search of mustard?

I have made some friends with other assistants here in Dijon (we even have our own cliquey Facebook group going on) and as well as eating and drinking meet ups have included cultural visits and on Wednesday involves a trip to Ikea (also cultural, but of a different sort!)

I am working at a medium sized lycee (sorta like a sixth form college for those not up on the lingo) and the teachers and kids seem nice although I’m utterly confused about my timetable but I’m told that’s normal to be confused by the organisation of French institutions! I’m teaching 15-22 year olds!!! That’s right after French students finish the bac (kinda like A levels) those who don’t go to uni stay on and do what’s called a BTS where they learn a trade or something but they still have English class. Today one of the BTS students came up to me in town and asked me what I was doing; shamefully I had to admit that I was buying Glamour (en francais I might add!)

So aside from all the jolly things the main stress has been accommodation (as I expected it to be). I am living with a friend of one of the English teachers at my school who is this super lovely, well travelled and very interesting lady who has a very large and very nice house with a pretty garden all to herself (apart from her sons who visit and another student who stays 2 nights a week). The house and my landlady really are perfect, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer person to settle me in to life in Dijon (and she cooks yummy food!) The only problem is I’m a city kinda girl who needs to be in walking distance of the shops and clubs so I have decided to look for somewhere more central than my current location. Telling my wonderful landlady was heart breaking and I cried and I think she did too, and the heartbreak isn’t over yet coz I haven’t yet moved yet but as a selfish move as it will be, I think it’s the right one, I’m afraid to say it but MY year abroad is about ME, if it was about other people I won’t be here (I know someone in particular who can vouch for that.)

For those who are interested in French actualities there’s a strike tomorrow meaning school’s a bit of a wash out so I have the whole day in bed....hence why I’m writing my blog at 1.30am!

Until next time...