Les Anglais ont débarqué

In theory, it's hometime tomorrow! However, this is dependent on high winds not disrupting either my trains or my plane, plus the airport security personnel strike being not too serious. I have major fear right now, let me tell you. If I miss my connection (at Disneyland?! I change trains at Disneyland?!), which is likely as it's only a ten minute connection, then I have to wait an hour for the next train to the airport, which will get me to the airport around 25 minutes before my gate closes. If my connecting train is on time of course. I need a miracle right now so will someone please perform some sort of anti-rain dance for me to take my stress away?

Mais c'est la vie en France. I thought it was quite amusing at first that the French go on strike as regularly as clockwork, but it turns out that the novelty wears off exceptionally quickly. Like when it potentially disrupts your travel plans (last week there was also a threat of a train drivers' strike because of the new timetable changes. I kid you not). Or when you have no internet for a day because the tech staff are on strike so can't flick the switch to turn the internet back on, as happened to me yesterday. Merci. Some of the teachers were also on strike today, although this was less disruptive so I can deal with that one.

Alright, rant over. Nothing much else to report here. It's rained for two weeks solid so I haven't really managed to venture too far! I went to Metz last weekend with one of the teachers to do a walk around the city to see all the sights. Literally all of them. I had no idea it was a 10k walk before we arrived there and I was hurting everywhere by the time I'd finished. But I guess it helped me work off the vin chaud and the waffle smothered in chocolate and cream that I needed to sustain me for the trek... I was also in Metz last Friday to accompany a Year 10 class. From what I gathered, the trip was some sort of careers event, so we ended up in the Pompidou Centre (an extension of the Parisian original apparently) to ask the tour guides about their careers, and then to the offices of the Républicain Lorrain - the local newspaper - where we got to see the printing presses and the whole process of making a newspaper from start to finish. The guy taking us round was very interesting and by the end of the tour I was ready to throw in the towel with my PCGE ambitions in order to become a journalist...! I'm still a little bit tempted, if I'm honest. But it was made clear to me that in France, local newspapers are real newspapers too, unlike back home (unless it is genuinely important to you who won the "Pigeon Fancier of the Year Award"). Here, the newspaper prints national and international news, added to the local news which is divided between seven different versions of the newspaper depending on which area you come from. Very impressive considering that this is on a daily basis! Another interesting fact is that the Républicain Lorrain started life as a German-language paper because that was the main language of the demographic at the time - Occupied France pre-WW1. After Lorraine was returned to France, the newspaper was printed in both French and in German, and the German edition was only stopped in 1989. Interesting stuff.

So with that little gem of local history, I'm going to love you and leave you. I'll also end with the fun fact that I learnt today which gave me the inspiration for the title: "les Anglais ont débarqué" (literally "the English have landed") means that a woman is on her period. Because the English wore red coats back in the day, y'know? So gross but highly amusing.

Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Bises,

Sophia xx

Juste pour les lols

Last month, a few of the English classes interviewed me and had to write a summary of what they had learnt about me. These are the highlights (or lowlights depending on how you look at it) - I just remembered about these today and thought they would amuse you as much as they did me! Marking these = hours of laughter.

"she would like to be a French teacher and later have a child"

"the young woman loves her food, her culture..."

"She lives in the north of Scotland, in England"

"Miss Mcc Ray has a boyfriend who call Christ"

"Unfortunately, the woman quit the France in May"

"She is quite sad to be here, but for the holidays she goes back to England"

"she is a twenty years olded woman"

"Sophia has twenti years old, he live in England"

"Sophia's family live in Ireland but she's live in England with Chris, her boyfriend"

"It's a young woman, she is a 23 years old"

"She use to chat with her family on skype and with her boyfriend Chris with who she wants children, but much later"

"There, the life is different. Indeed, they drive to the left on the road"

"She has green eyes and red hair and she always smiles"

"The young English likes France in particular for the culture of this country"

"She goes in Ireland to Christmas in family"

"Her birthday is the thirst May"

"She has not a brother or a sister because she has a dog"

"Her name is Sophia and she's 30 years old"

"Sophia she a ordinary women"

"This is assistant call Sophie and She live in Scotland. She can learn French because it wants to become a French teacher. She came to Lorraine to know history. But his favorite country is Ireland because that is were family lives. She loves the number 4. She love the movie "Black Swan" and her favorite book is "To Kill Moderking is". She has a dog. She enjoy this sport "hockey" and she play to hockey. She was watched world cup rudby. She love fashen. She is fashen girl. She back to maybe in France."

After all of these howlers (and many more which didn't make the final cut), let me tell you that I am seriously questioning my looks - firstly, is my gender really that obscure? Do I really look 30? And most importantly, do I look ginger?! One pupil asked me last month if I had ginger hair, but thankfully I was valiantly defended by one of her classmates, who retorted, "can you not see that she has not got the head of the carrot?!". Indeed.

This might have been topped by today's faux pas. I have been talking to classes about the English school system and have been starting off all my classes by holding up my school tie and asking the kids to guess what we're going to talk about. I've done this with 6 classes so far and every class has guessed straight away. Except my wonderful Year 11 class this morning, where one darling angel boy asked me if we were talking about "when you put your tie on the door to tell people you're having sex". Weirdly enough, he wasn't even looking for a laugh. He was being deadly serious. And that's when I got frightened...

Bises,

Sophia (AKA fashen girl) xx

The Capital of Christmas

Jumping back now to last weekend, I met up with the lovely Michèle and her friend Meredith (bless them, coming from Marseille by sleeper train) to party on down in Strasbourg! Nice and close to me, Strasbourg is one of those places that has been on the tick list ever since I knew I was coming to this area. It calls itself the "capital of Christmas", and it isn't far wrong. Even for someone like me, who doesn't get overly excited about Christmas, it was a truly magical place. Kind of like Disneyland for grownups. Don't get me wrong, I'm no Scrooge, but I'm just not the sort of person who gets excited about Christmas in January. Or even November. However, Strasbourg seems to be the sort of place which can change my mind...

Nothing says "I love you" like a gingerbread piggy

There are lights everywhere, Santa hats galore, giant vats of mulled wine, thousands of Germans (don't they have their own, bigger and better Christmas markets?!) and most importantly/confusingly large hats with a big white bird on the top (see above). At the time, none of us had any idea what this symbolised, but Wikipedia has the answers as always: "The stork is a main feature of Alsace and was the subject of many legends told to children. The bird practically disappeared around 1970, but re-population efforts are continuing. They are mostly found on roofs of houses, churches and other public buildings in Alsace." See a picture here.

Everything which seemed wonderful in the daytime immediately got twice as cool as soon as it got dark - one good thing about it getting dark early I suppose - and the lights everywhere were just dazzling. Easiest way to regress 15-20 years, let me tell you. We even asked for directions from some drunken Sixth Formers, who told us to "turn right when you get to the bright blue Christmas tree". Blue trees! Where else would you get directions like this (that turn out to be accurate)?! 

The street we nicknamed Christmas Street

SO MANY LIGHTS

We even managed to fit in some cultural things in the form of not one, but two museums and of course a visit to the famous cathedral,  which really has to be seen to be believed and appreciated for how spectacular it looks!

However the highlight for me, as always, was the food. I tried as many things as possible from the market stalls (washed down with mulled wine/cider, bien sûr), and we also went for a slap-up meal in a cosy little place on Christmas Street called St Sepulcre. If you're ever in Strasbourg, GO THERE. It's no budget meal, but it's not extortionate and it is worth every single centime. The food was amazing, the wine slipped down nicely and the atmosphere was great craic - very warm and welcoming in true Alsatian style. I need to get back there soon.

So to sum up, get yourself to Strasbourg ASAP, preferably before Christmas. You'll spend a small fortune but you won't regret it! Next time though, I'll try to practice my ice skating first...

Bises,

Sophia xx

A Successful Day (mostly)

Well folks, today has officially been A Successful Day.

Success #1: My shower has been fixed after 2 and a half weeks of cold water and doleful shrugs when I complain to anyone who seemed vaguely responsible (I could never track down the person who was actually responsible, just people who knew him or knew of him). It took a dramatic flouncing up to one of the people in question in the school canteen, interrupting their lunch, and announcing that I now had a cold because I still had a cold shower, so what were they going to do about it. Hey presto, hot water!

Success #2: I have a fully functioning TV! Still not quite sure how this happened because I had no emotional blackmail tools to help me on this, but after 2 months of a decrepit TV with a video player which didn't seem to have worked for the best part of twenty years, I arrived home today to find a replacement sitting in front of the old one. It even has a digibox. Merci bien.

Success #3: After 2 months, 6 forms, 3 copies of my birth certificate (original and translation) and 3 copies of my bank details, I finally have health insurance and a social security number. Again, still not sure how this has happened because I had already resigned myself to the belief that my health insurance application would never be accepted. The highlight of my lengthy correspondence with the MGEN (all by letter, might I add) has to be last week, when I was asked for the third copy of my birth certificate "avec les mentions en marge" - "with notes in the margins". I still don't know what this means, nor did any of the teaching staff present at the time, and all I could do was ask the teacher responsible for me to write a note stating that as my birth certificate is not a French one, it is not the same as a French one. This was topped off by the fact that the stamped addressed envelope included in the letter was too small to fit in anything that I needed to send back. Student Finance England, eat your heart out.

But pride always comes before a fall and this is no exception. In the course of writing this blog I heated up leftover stroganoff from the previous night to eat for my tea. I had kept it in a tupperware box, the previous contents of which was an orange jelly, and my beautiful stroganoff therefore had the pleasant orange, sugary aftertaste which one really needs to create the perfect stroganoff sauce. Fail #1.

But all in all a good day I feel. Vive la France!

Bises,

Sophia xx

Bad Romance

Alas, a weekend of no plans beckons (to be fair, I think this is the first time since I arrived), so expect a couple of new posts this weekend as I procrastinate from doing lesson plans and uni work in between catching up on my sleep (I am not feeling these 8am starts). Also, I've found out that being a teacher is actually pretty tiring, even when you're only doing 12 hours a week! But that sounds less than it actually is when you factor in lesson planning, trying to get your health insurance sorted (2 months and counting), and chilling in the staff room trying to chat to the teachers so that you can practice your French (it sounds easier than it is. Talking in French is tiring). But enough of the woe-is-me, that's not why you're here dear reader is it?

So I'll chat about my trip to Paris during half term instead. The French are positively phobic of working too hard, so we got the best part of two weeks holiday from school at the end of October, after I had barely been working for a month. Well if you insist... So I TGV'd it up to Gay Paree - what a wonderful thing the TGV is by the way - to see the lovesick boyf who was wasting away from pining for me (sorry - I know you read this, but it's all artistic license). I'd love to say that we had a beautiful, romantic weekend creating a new chapter of our never-ending love story, but anyone who knows us as a couple or either of us separately will be very aware that this is not us! But that's not to say that we didn't have an amazing time - it just wasn't the way every other couple in Paris seems to be! We did manage to get one (blurry) photo together at the Eiffel Tower , but that's your lot I'm afraid! 

Apart from this one lapse in judgement, we were happily cynical for the rest of the weekend, just enjoying each other's company while sniggering at all the other happy couples and trying to dodge the other tourists (again, harder than it sounds in Paris. They're EVERYWHERE). The highlight was probably finding a champagne cork on the steps of Sacré Coeur on the Sunday morning... But apart from that we tramped around all weekend seeing as much as possible and tiring ourselves out to the point where on the last day we seemed to spend the entire day moving from park bench to park bench just to be able to sit down some more. Cue photos of various places we visited:

I think for me the highlight had to be the Pantheon. I'd never been inside before and it really stunned me - such a beautiful place! Of course, the best bit was that we got in to so many places for free by muttering "moins de 26 ans" - another reason to love the EU. The economy may be going down the sh*tter, but at least we can get into the Louvre for free... On that note, remind me never again to climb ALL those stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe... even if it is free. And I might well give the Mona Lisa a miss next time too - she's definitely not all she's cracked up to be, especially when you have to fight through hundreds of tourists blatantly disobeying the "no photographs" signs and desperately trying to get the best shot of what is, let's face it, a tiny painting of a creepy wee woman. There's loads of other cool stuff in the Louvre. Go find it!

I'm running out of space so on that note I shall love you and leave you :) If you're looking for a guide to advise you about where to go in Paris, I'd ask someone else. Or get a guidebook!

Bises,

Sophia xx

PS I really wanted to include this, even though most of you will not really understand why this is so funny, so here it is: the magic pigeon from the Medieval Museum near the Sorbonne. Enjoy!

Big Fish

So Paris can wait - I have a fishy tale to tell, and it's hot off the press (it happened this morning)... It's not really exciting enough to warrant an entire blog post to itself, but hopefully this will go to show just how random my life here is...

To set the scene, in Briey there is a massive artificial lake where the entire town gathers to walk/jog, go fishing or people watch (the French national sport) on sunny days. Especially old people, I've noticed, so I wonder if this is the French equivalent of mall walking. 

It's good fun to go and observe, but be careful not to stand on an old dear's impossibly tiny dog. The French really to seem to go in for small dogs, which never really seem to walk anywhere because they are always being carried by their mammy. On the TGV to Paris I saw a woman with her dog tucked into her cleavage. True story.

But anyways, Carolin and I decided to head down there this morning for a wander because the weather was gorgeous and about halfway round the lake we saw an old guy struggling with his fishing line. There was a bit of a crowd forming (the French are not subtle about their love for people watching) so we decided to join in as well and wait to see what happened. We were there for about ten minutes and I was about to leave because I was convinced the guy had just got his line stuck at the bottom of the lake, when suddenly this HUGE fish came out of the water and was flopped onto the bank. I was reliably informed by someone in the crowd that the fish was a carp, and that it was one of the biggest carp in the lake. Quite a big deal in this town, let me tell you.

Pulling the fish out of the lake

The most unsubtle crowd in the world

Pointing and staring

But fear not, someone else in the crowd explained to me that these fish weren't caught to be eaten. So after everyone had taken as many photos as they wanted to and muttered "c'est énorme" to each other, the fisherman unhooked the poor thing and let it back into the lake, presumably to be caught by someone else an hour later. It was a true Free Willy moment.

Bid for freedom

And so my fishy tale ends well... until the poor bugger gets fooled by someone else's bait and gets pulled up to the surface to be stared at again. A typical Sunday in the French countryside!

City tales next time, je te promets.

Bises,

Sophia xx

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

Catchup #2

The most difficult part of this is deciding where to start for the next blog! I've done so many different things and been to so many places already that it's hard to know what to talk about first. The thing is as well that lots of things have happened recently that I want to talk about too! I've decided that I'll start with a few choice photos and explain them before I get on to current events... First of all, my trips to Metz (my nearest city):

Porte Serpenoise (basically a pretty gate)

Metz Cathedral

Metz seems pretty cool so far: lots of shops and interesting things to have a nosey at, so there's definitely a lot more to explore there. Another added bonus is that I can get the bus direct from school to Metz, which saves me relying on blagging a lift. The downside to this is that after about half a dozen journeys I still have no idea how much the bus actually costs because I'm charged a different amount every time. I have no idea how or why. The average seems to be 4 euros for the journey to Metz and 1 euro 70 for the return journey (they won't let you buy a return ticket), but I definitely got charged 3 euros 20 last time I went and I HAVE NO IDEA WHY. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll work it out...!

I've also been to Nancy (pronounced Nawncy, fact fans) to meet up with some of the other assistants in the area. It was great craic but it really is amazing to see how Brits who do very well at blending in while on their own suddenly become so much more ignorant/giggly when in the company of other Brits abroad. Apologies to the inhabitants of Nancy who had to put up with our hysterics in the aquarium while we were watching some fish have a fight in their tank (simple things...) But Nancy is a really beautiful city and I have a lot more left to see there too, so I'll have to get another trip down there organised before too long. Another motivation to get down there is the University Erasmus nights out, AKA Operation Stanislash. I haven't been out drinking for a good two months so that one should be interesting...

Place Stanislas

I tried to write some more here about other things I've been up to, but I ran out of space, so I'll have to end here and continue in a new post. Whoops!

To be continued....     

Better Late Than Never...

I realise that having been in France for over a month now, I probably should have started this blog a long time ago if I was going to do it properly! However, after a full month of dithering about whether or not I wanted to write a blog, procrastination prevails over lesson plans and Philosophy reading (urgh), and here I am! Another motivation is that I am subject to the school's internet firewalls, meaning Facebook is banned, so this is the only way I can show people some photos of my new life! Case in point: here is a view of Briey. Ta da!

Anyways, let's get down to business! First of all I would like to apologise for the dreadful pun which is an excuse for a title (I'm not really the most imaginative of people as it turns out), and second of all I would like to apologise in advance if this isn't a very exciting blog or if I get bored halfway through the year and forget to add any more posts to it. This, I must warn you, is a very likely outcome. And finally I would like to apologise for any future typos caused by my crappy keyboard. I do try to spell check but the buggers just keep on coming. 

So, you should all know who I am so hopefully I can skip that part. In short, I'm spending October to April working as the English language assistant at the Lycée Louis Bertrand in a tiny town near Luxembourg called Briey (hence the horrific title. I can only apologise again.). So far, everyone has been incredibly welcoming, the town is lovely (although tiny) and I'm having an absolute blast! I've settled in nicely and have yet to feel any real homesickness, which is startling but a good sign I feel. Perhaps this is the time for more photos!

My wee cell of a bedroom

The Forest (no wolves spotted as of yet)

The School

Briey

The Boarding House (AKA my home for this year)

I'm living here in the boarding house of the school, but off to the side in a separate flat I share with the German assistant (lovely girl, more about her to follow) and a mysterious man whom I've only seen once but we know he's there because we can smell it when he smokes in his room. I'm pretty sure that's not allowed but since when did the French care about the rules?! It's pretty much like being back in halls: strange, impersonal, cell-like room, hard-as-nails single bed... And there are pros and cons to that: I have my own bathroom which is a novelty (with a froggy shower curtain no less!) and my own fridge, but there's no oven which means no oven pizza/baked camembert, and the kids are woken up at 6.30am which is a bitch if you're a light sleeper! Thankfully, I'm not... The worst thing though is the blocked internet and the emptiness when the kids aren't here! At the moment I am very much home alone: Carolin (the German assistant) has gone home for a visit and it's the school holidays which means empty buildings. The best bit about this is that the heating has been turned off because "it's the holidays and no-one's here". Thanksssssssssssssssssssss. I'm so glad I'm not going to be here for the Christmas holidays...!

Well that'll do for a first post I think! I've plenty more to catch up on but I don't want to make these ridiculously long... I'm away for the weekend (my daddy's coming to stay! Yay!) so I'll get cracking on something else when I get back. There's plenty more where that came from!

Bises

Sophia xx