Half-way

Well, yes, I am half-way through my contract here.  Although, not half-way through my time away, as I'll be travelling for two months after the end of my contract.  As expected it has gone so fast, but yet, I feel like there is still so long to go.  With winter weather, illness, no travel planned and a few up and down moments in the last couple of weeks, I'm definately missing things and people from home a lot more.  But, it's to be expected and to have gone nearly 4 months without really feeling like this has been pretty impressive I reckon (and it's a very mild dose!).

So what have I been up to?

Well, it was great that there were 6 days of beautiful, bluebird days in a row, which brought with it very cold temperatures, where some days the frost never disappeared!  I was spoilt in that a friend of mine took me for a day at the beach on La Manche/The English Channel.  It was a good 3 hour drive and we got to the coast to a litte village that is heaving with people in summer and was nearly deserted this cold, mid-winter's Saturday.  We went for a long walk along the beach to a point where we could see a cute, little coastal village.  We saw a muscle farm and we were able to see Jersey and Chausey Islands.  By the time we got back it was dark and we headed to Granville for dinner and back to L'Aigle late that night.   A lovely day!

As I am half-way through my contract, my timetable has changed around slightly so other students can get to spend time with the language assistant.  I still have Monday and Wednesday off, and I have the same number of hours on Friday - my busiest day, and now I have less on Thursday and more on Tuesday.  In terms of the work, its no big deal, just different students with different requirements which all seems pretty straight-forward.

This Sunday I headed into Paris for the day, because I was missing church, so I got up and took the train to Paris to go to Hillsong.  I meet up with my friends Jason and Rebekah and then we went out for lunch afterwards.  Being Sunday the streets of Paris where rather deserted.  They wanted to take me to this street they'd been to the day before that had heaps of character and where they had found a cute little restaurant for lunch.  Well, we turned up and this is where all the people of Paris were.  The street was full of people and there were cute, old people singing Edith Piaf and people dancing in the street. It was awesome.  It was a classic Parisian moment.  I was gutted I didn't have my camera with me.  Then we found the cute little restaurant.  Little being the operative word as it was so teeny tiny.  It was called the Maison des Tartes (House of Tarts).  For 8 euros, we got a drink, a savoury tart and a dessert tart.  It was great!  After that we walked through the 5th arrondisement past the Pantheon to St Michel.  Here's a pic I stole from the google images of Rue Mouffetard, where we had lunch.

Then I went to see an old friend, Tunde, who is Hungarian and who my Eau Vive friends and I all met when we were in Provence in 2005.  I haven't seen her since then, and it just happened that she is working on canal boats and her boat is in Paris at the moment. 

From there I decided I needed to participate in a bi-annual French ritual.  Les Soldes!!  Les Soldes are the sales that take place Jan/July every year when the shops try to get rid of their stock to make room for the next season's range.  Everyone has been going on about how good these Soldes would be because of 'La Crise' (the Recession) and how the shops need to get rid of so much stuff.  They've been talking about as much as 70% off stuff.  Some people think that the Soldes have been a bit over-rated this year and I'd have to say I think for the most part they are right.  None-the-less, after a week with a few disappointments I needed some retail therapy, so I joined the other half of Paris at La Defense shopping centre, Le Quatre Temps, and I fended my way through the narrow pathways in each store, with racks overflowing with clothes and shoes, and products strewn across the floor, pushing and shoving just to get in the door to each shop.  It was hard to get a good bargain but in the end I succesfully bought two items both 50% off, so I was pleased with that and it was time to get the train back to L'Aigle.

The latest adventure was a trip today to the Dr's.  I've had a really bad cough that just won't go away and keeps me awake at night and I'm sore from coughing so much.  Diagnosis - Tracheitis - inflammation of the trachea.  What was classic was that I had to pay the Dr directly (I've been to the Dr in France before and I don't remember doing that).  Plus, she didn't take card so luckily, I had enough cash and to give me change she just gave it to me from her purse!  Then, in typical French fashion - they love their medicine, I got loaded up with a pile of different medications.  I'm supposed to have a magic card thing which means I get reimbursed for a decent amount of what I spent today but again, typical French beauracracy means I don't have this card yet (and I wonder if I'll ever get it before I leave, as I know that has happened to many people) so I had to fork out for it all.  After, I caught up with some friends who proceded to tell me that what I have is contagious (all though the Dr didn't tell me that) and that I can't do the Bises (the custom of kissing on the cheek when you meet people) while I'm sick.  So no Bises for a while, but the irony is I've had this cough for well over a week and I've been in front of classes of students and I've given 'les bises' to everyone I know here several times over, so its a bit late for taking such precautions now I think!! If they are going to have it, they will have it by now!!

Well, that's all for now.  3 weeks left of the term and then its holidays.  I'm off to Prague and Vienna for a week.  I'm looking forward to that, especially as at the hostel in Prague my room got upgraded to a private room due to a mix-up.  If you know anyone who wants to join me let me know 'cos I'd love a travel buddy!!



Bonne Année!

Bonne année tout le monde !  Happy New Year everybody ! 

Well, I hope the festive season was as good for you as it was for me.  I spent around 10 days in St Raphael/Frejus soaking in the sun and warmer temperatures at my friend Laure’s family home.  Her family were so lovely and so welcoming.  It was really nice to be in a family environment again, especially for Christmas.  They were a family away from home.  They looked after me very well, and I was very spoilt.  We spent most of the time relaxing and reading.  We ate a lot of good food, and it was great to experience real French family life, which I haven’t seen a lot of as I’ve never been in a family in France.  It was so good to be back in Provence.  It really is one of my happy places.  There is just something about it, I love it.  One evening we went to the movies to see Hugo Cabaret – an excellent film.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Another thing that is very popular in Provence is to make Nativity scenes with Santons, which are figures made in the region to represent traditional life here.  One person's home I went to had the biggest nativity scene I've ever scene.  There is a lot of work and effort that goes into it and it was very detailed.  There were farmers, a waterfall, even people playing petanque.

Then the second wave of the international visitors Chez Laure arrived with Rebekah and Jason from the United States.  We spent the afternoon soaking up the beautiful sun and gorgeous coastline of St Raph, and even dipped our feet in the Med.  It was lovely!

On the 23^rd, the third wave flew in from London, with the arrival of Miriam (Australian).  We had to pick her up from Nice so we went there for the evening to see the old town, the Christmas markets and the lights.  Here flight was delayed so we made the most of it to eat dinner and look around a bit more.  I really liked the old town of Nice, with the lights etc it really felt like a set of a movie. 

The 24^th was the day we celebrated Christmas.  We spent the day preparing, including practicing songs we were going to sing to the family – a new experience for me, I was definitely out of my comfort zone.  There were 16 of us in total with some of Laure’s  extended family and the international contingent.  We ate a big meal in the evening, including Kir Royale (cassis syrup with champagne, mmm), foie gras, duck confit, roasted chestnuts and other things for the entrée.  Followed by two big roasted Chapon (castrated rooster) with vegetables for the main, followed by Buche de Noel and a dessert that Laure made that I can never remember the name of.  It was very good and then we had the presents.  So many presents!!  We all stayed up until about 3am.

The next day (the 25^th) we woke up to do it all again for Christmas lunch.  I think they had planned another meal entirely for the lunch but there were so many leftovers and we were still so full, we ate the rests for lunch and then worked our way through the Christmas food over the following days.

The 26^th we were treated to a surprise visit from Dave and Magali from Aix-en-Provence that Miriam, Jason and Rebekah and I knew from when we were there in 2005, it was great to see them and we spent the whole day around the table, eating and talking.

The 27^th I sadly said goodbye to what had felt like my home away from home.  But, I was off to Albi (1 hour from Toulouse) to see Nathalie who I had not seen since she was last in New Zealand at the beginning of 2010.  It was great to catch up with her again and she was a great host, showing me some of the region and having me try some of the specialties.  We went to Cordes-sur-Ciel a village perched on the top of a hill, beautiful with stunning views.  Then we looked around Albi and saw its amazing cathedral and rose coloured stone buildings.

Cordes-sur-Ciel

Albi

Entrance to the Cathedral at Albi

Albi Cathedral

On the Friday we went to Toulouse where I met a couple of her friends and they took us around Toulouse and then I stayed at her friend Gilles house until later that evening when I jumped on the night train back to L’Aigle in time to spend le Reveillon (New Years Eve) with my friends here in L’Aigle.  That was another big French meal where I tried more foie gras and Calvados.  We had a lot of fun dancing and singing the night away. 

This week it has been back to work which is a bit of a shock after the festive season and so many late nights to not have much time to recover, so everyone has been pretty mellow.  The weather sounds a lot like how it is in NZ actually.  It pretty much rains all the time and if it isn’t raining it is cloudy.  I have seen the sun about twice for brief moments.  I don’t have much planned for January yet but to be honest with weather like this I don’t really want to travel in it, so I’m planning on relaxing here and saving some money and trying to plan my trips for later in the year.