Time for a 'Lille' holiday!

It is currently ski-season in France. The mountains are snowy, the gear is ready and surprise surprise, there are significantly more absent children than usual in both schools. Of course, as the girl-with-teacher-for-mother, I’m bound to be bitter about this last observation, having never been allowed a day off except in cases of violent vomiting, uncontrollable diarrhoea, or on one occasion, hospital admittance for a bladder scan...though even that was ‘pushing it’, apparently. How I longed for ‘cool’ (and hypochondriac- the two at that time seemed to go hand in hand) parents; the sort that prioritised off-peak holidays and routinely decided that one sneeze merited a day away from the ‘hothouse of germs’ (aka school) snuggled up with Tom and Jerry and blackcurrant Calpol because after all, the ‘poor mite’ was inevitably ‘coming down with something’. But no. Unfortunately for my sister and I, our parents believed firmly in the hale-and-hearty method, selfishly putting our education above sun, sea and sniffles. How could they. I did win the attendance prize every year without fail though, so it wasn’t all doom and gloom...something for the CV.

               So the holidays are nearly upon us, and needless to say I’ve decided against the whole skiing thing. Those of you who know me will remember my ineptness at almost every form of sport. There was the spectacular Christmas ice-skating fall which still occasionally brings a twinge to my coccyx, the Freshers’ Week dry ski slope incident where my skis got caught under a barbed wire fence and I had to be rescued by the instructor, and of course not forgetting the summer rounders games of ’02-’06, where I devised the ingenious strategy of fielding out deep in a space where only left-handed batters could reach, only for my reveries to be rudely interrupted by the odd flying ball which, despite the urgent cries of my teammates, I usually ignored. No, whilst numerous French families bed down in their cosy log cabins and rub after-sun into their wind-burnt, goggle marked faces, by tomorrow evening I will be back home, snuggled on the sofa with my family, all of us undoubtedly wearing matching bunny onesies.

                  The past weeks have flown by. Just after Christmas, I was sitting in the Portsmouth ferry port with a fellow assistant Nadine, both of us desperately trying to remember what it was we liked most about Le Havre in an attempt to rid ourselves of the utter despondence we felt at the prospect of returning. Our eventual response? The people we’d met. ‘Oh, and the beach, I guess’, Nadine added with a sigh. We weren’t convincing anyone.

               Yet here I am again, now with only seven teaching weeks until the very end of my year abroad, and there is still so much I want to do. On the cards after the holidays is an assistants’ trip to Bruges, a potential visit to Angers, and Disneyland round two (round three in August with my sister). Last weekend, I went to Lille, where I stayed with a couple of Southampton friends; Jen and Harriet. It was really lovely to see them both, and I thoroughly enjoyed the city itself, despite a morbid (and slightly ridiculous) tale I’d previously heard about a girl who developed foot problems from too many strolls along the cobbled streets. Luckily, my tootsies survived the weekend unscathed, and highlights of the trip included lots of shopping, a sample of Lille nightlife and a man on the metro whose bodily aromas were so pungent that we were forced to disembark before our stop and wait for the next one to avoid publicly gagging. A good time had by all.

                  This Saturday is my twenty-first birthday, another reason for my ever-building excitement at returning to England. Yesterday evening was spent making skittle vodka and vodka jelly (NB: jelly doesn’t seem to exist in France...luckily a friend had some on hand) in preparation for tonight’s pre-birthday festivities, namely a meal out followed by what promises to be an incredibly amusing club night. The theme is ‘90s’; something which in England is a fairly common occurrence and a more than valid excuse for me to openly display my unceasing love for S Club 7, not to mention proudly showcase the dance I choreographed to ‘Don’t Stop Movin’ in primary school at the talented age of eleven. The Facebook  page declares the event to be ‘fancy dress’, however for a country whose usual club attire is composed of UGG boots and full-length parkas, I’m not sure what to make of this. There will certainly be no tiny union-jack dresses or pink PVC skirts, so as you can imagine, I was more than a little confused when my (only) French friend ecstatically told me of how she and her gang would be dressing up as the Spice Girls....I’ve decided to play it safe with a leopard-print top. If worst comes to worst, I can label myself ‘Scary’, whilst still wearing what is a fairly normal outfit, unlike my famous Halloween ‘spider’ costume last year in Southampton, where I had four pairs of newspaper-stuffed black tights sewed to my fake cobweb-sprayed dress and the taxi driver had to do up my seatbelt. Full details of this upcoming evening and all other birthday antics to be reported after the two week half term.

                    So for now lovely readers, all that remains is for me to wish you bonnes vacances, or in the words of my students: beautiful/good/bonnes holidays!

I have been living in France since the five months...a week of flirtation and faux-pas

Another week of amazing linguistic errors; provided this time not only by my ever-amusing students, but by a couple of well-established English teachers who quite frankly, should know better. Allow me to elaborate. Last Thursday for instance, it was decided that the topic of the lunchtime English club would be ‘Groundhog Day’. Now, I recognise it as a film title (which incidentally I’ve never actually seen), but aside from that my knowledge of the concept is very limited. What I’m fairly certain of however, is that when printing out a themed wordsearch from apples4theteacher.com or some such lesson plan-cheating website, it is normally a good idea to double check the vocab list before dolling it out to unsuspecting eleven year olds who, bless their hearts, have no idea whatsoever of the meaning of half the words anyway. ‘Gobbler’s Knob’ for example, had me in silent stitches for a good ten minutes before one teacher noticed and asked for an explanation. ‘Knob....means....willy’ I managed to chortle, all professional etiquette instantly vanishing. My fellow staff member’s response to this mature utterance? None other than this: ‘I am very happy to know this word’. I’m not quite sure what she meant by this, but needless to say, it nearly finished me off. Those poor clueless children.

                    Now, I've always scoffed at those over-confident year abroad students who brag about how they’re SO enriched in foreign culture now that sometimes they just CANNOT remember a word in English....anyone remember the Armstrong and Miller sketch? (See previous blog entries). ‘What are you calling yourself to yourself’, ‘My head is so much in the France now that my English is very very tiny’, etc. I never in a million years thought I could ever become that much of a ponce. Yet, after asking if English has a subjunctive (true story) and announcing to my bemused assistant friends how I planned to ‘mount’ the midnight bus, think I’m going to have to reconsider my stance. Whilst of course some people (namely lecturers and Oxbridge graduates) may see these faux-pas as significant linguistic leaps in the direction of full fluency, I tend to just loathe myself that little bit more each fois (oh, sorry, I mean time) it happens. Why in order to reach native level, every languages student seemingly has to go through this phase of sounding like a complete fool, I’ll never understand. ‘Galerie Nationale, Galerie Nationale, Galerie Nationale.....ahhh yes, the National Gallery!’ (Another classic Armstrong and Miller gem there).

                    However French I may think I’ve become, it was all taken away from me last week with the arrival of two Canadian exchange students. For some reason, they found my British accent a never-ending source of amusement regardless of which language I was speaking. Constant demands that I repeat such phrases as ‘Harry Potter’, ‘Expelliaramus’ and ‘More crumpets please guv’nor made for an incredibly unproductive lesson, particularly when my compliance led to fits of convulsive laughter, and one boy rolling on the floor clutching his stomach in a mildly alarming manner. Don’t worry though, he wasn’t in pain, it was simply all down to his ‘ADD’ (Attention Deficit Disorder?) apparently, something which he delighted in explaining  to me at least fourteen times during the 30 minute class, to the point where I began questioning if he was using it as an excuse to behave like a total moron (he definitely was).

                    This particular class was certainly one of many ‘interesting’ characters. Another fourteen year old boy spent the entire session (in between the Canadians’ cries of ‘God Save the Queen’ that is) desperately attempting to accquire my address, my phone number, or, failing that, a date. Now, I’ve encountered flirtatiousness before, as is only natural when a twenty year old female comes across a group of testosterone-fuelled adolescent lads, but never had I seen this level of persistence. After the old ‘is not for me, is for my brother, he 20’ (classic), this ingenious child then moved to new heights, telling me in French how my eyes sparkle like the sun (can’t deny it) and even requesting ‘bisous please’ (kisses) when leaving the classroom, pointing to his cheek and giving me what can only be described as puppy-dog eyes. A definite charmer in the making....I just hope it wasn’t truly for his brother otherwise I may have made a terrible mistake....

                   One-liners and language barrier aside, I’ve recently derived a seamless technique for quietening the most raucous of classes. Simple yet effective, it is simply this: a sudden outburst of garbled and rapid English forcing attitude-infused French faces to drain of all confidence as previously-gabby mouths to widen in genuine fear....still think you’re ‘trop fort’ to listen in my classes little boy? Think encore. You’ll have to try a lot harder to outsmart this tough teacher. Wait, what’s that you say? My eyes sparkle like the sun....?

Buses in France: 'Enough of this gay banter'

More bus antics for you this week. Amazing how much mockery can be made of the French public transport system....just you wait til I move onto the 40 cent funicular railway. Anyway. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but this ‘being bezzie mates with the bus driver’ craze really is becoming more and more of a regular occurrence. I would now say that at some point during nine journeys out of ten, there will be at least one over-friendly Frenchy leaning into the driver’s area (no euphemism intended) and engrossed in persistent chat. As John Cleese would say; ‘enough of this gay banter’ (‘Vocational Guidance Councillor’ sketch, see below).

               In almost four months, I’ve heard the most bizarre of exchanges, from a primary school child’s detailed account of his day at school (no, the driver wasn’t his dad) to a dead-pan serious man solemnly discussing, or rather lecturing on, the various flavours and re-brands of Coca-Cola through the ages....I think I hear Mastermind calling. A few weeks ago, I also saw one eager woman up the front proudly whip out a selection of photos from her oversized Tote bag, which appeared from a distance to be her holiday snaps. At any rate, there was definitely sand and sun involved, neither of which, may I add, are typical Le Havre features. Beaches...bikinis...safe to say the male driver’s eyes were anywhere BUT the road, leaving me and my fellow passengers to simply cross our fingers and fervently hope that this woman was not a topless sunbather. As if that wasn’t enough, when getting on the bus, many of ‘these’ people even do the ‘bises’ (the standard French kissing on each cheek), which leads me to two possible conclusions. One: ‘Havrais’ bus drivers are incredibly popular, or two: the French are insane. Answers on a postcard.

                Perhaps I don’t get out enough (or arguably I get out too much!), but for me foreign public transport is a never-ending source of entertainment. I realised on the bus yesterday for instance how long it had been since I last saw a man in a suit. Small pleasures, possibly, but Le Havre in general is definitely more of a ‘dress down’ city. Of course, this is great for me, for as is well known, students love the odd ‘slob day’; any excuse to don the University-inscribed trackies and society hoody with self-thought witty slogan scrawled across it (or in my case, French society: ‘get an Eiffel of my tower’), and slouch down to the corner shop for a Fanta and a packet of post-revision Hob-Nobs. So here in the big LH (abbreviations are cool), we’re in our element. But formal attire...now THAT is rare, possibly even frowned upon, particularly on the buses. The man in question received many sniffing mate-stop-trying-to-be-alternative –type glances from the other ‘voyageurs’ as he stood nervously clutching his shiny leather briefcase. The sort of looks in fact, which some of us (me) would potentially direct at a wannabe ‘Urban Outfitters’-style teen here in England as she brushed down her Oh So Vintage patterned jumper and swung her deliberately-distressed military boots up onto the seat opposite. Sigh.

                  However, it seems the drivers are beginning to tire of this continuous stream of new ‘friend’s (cue InBetweeners quote). As I’ve no doubt previously told you, Le Havre is currently under construction. The eagerly-anticipated 395 million euro tramway is due to open in December 2012, and according to its enthusiastic website will apparently be ‘ideal for going to work, shopping, leisure, or a simple family outing’. Yet what it fails to document, and what I like to think of as inevitable small print, is the fact that each driver will be in a completely separate compartment to the public, thereby killing two proverbial birds with one (very expensive- potentially a diamond?) stone.

              But for now, my tip of the day is this. If you’re ever bored (or lonely) in a foreign country, just hop on a bus. You won’t regret it, and who knows, you might even end the journey with a new best bud.