Recent Travels (Part II)

As promised, here is the second installment of my recent adventures with a little bit about adventures to come.

Paris

Ridiculous though it may seem, even though I live only about an hour away by train, I have not been to Paris since arriving in Lille. That said, I have been a few times before-- mainly to Disney Land as a child, but I have also done a lot of site seeing there too.

When I heard a few friends were visiting Paris for a few days with some other friends, I thought 'Why not join them?' They're teaching assistants like me, but in Germany and it had been about eight or nine months since I had last seen them, which made the trip all the more exciting.

We arranged to meet in Montmartre and before my friends arrived, I engaged in a bit of people-watching. Most notably, there was a man who was just the sort of person I had hoped would live in Paris. He was quite quirky looking: middle-aged; long-ish, curly hair; fairly small, circular glasses and wearing pretty normal clothes save for the green suede loafers he was also wearing which were what caught my attention. He's the sort of person who I imagine lives in a converted white town-house apartment with black doors and window frames on a quiet street, working most of the day in a bohemian study-room where he either paints, writes or studies academic papers and gets through approximately 27 espressos per day, owns a tabby cat and smokes.

Not that I judge by appearances, you understand.


Once my friends had arrived and while we waiting for one of their friends to arrive, we did what one generally does in France, which is get cake. Frankly, if there's anywhere in the world that is a menace to dieters and those particularly concerned about staying in shape, it's France. It doesn't matter how strong your resolve is on Sunday evening, for example, to eat healthily starting from Monday morning, you absolutely won't succeed even to Monday afternoon...

...Well, you try saying no to freshly baked pastry, bread, cakes, pâtisseries, nutella-based goods (the best kind of goods) and goodness knows what else. Cake is persuasive.

And if you don't believe me, voici:

Perhaps a crime to eat in fact, but undoubtedly a crime not to.


Montmartre is an interesting area of Paris: notoriously dodgy in terms of pick-pocketers and muggings, but also a charming place full of old cobbled streets, lovely buildings and with the Basilique de Sacré Cœur at the very top of the hill. It's also home to the famous artists' square which is full of painters of extraordinary talent. There's an infectious hustle and bustle everywhere that makes you gravitate towards it and not want to leave.

Our next stop wasn't something I'd expected. We went to Galeries Lafayette, of which there is one in Lille. I was a little confused at first as to why this was such a priority, because, whilst it's a great department store in Lille, I hadn't been aware of it being an attraction in Paris.

I soon worked it out.

It. Is. Huge. Not only that, it happens to be in a very beautiful old building and looking up from the ground floor there is a beautiful domed glass ceiling with ornate balconies at the edge of each floor. The layout is cylindrical, so the balconies face inwards and overlook the ground floor and make for quite an impressive view with all the haute couture brands such as Chanel, Dior, YSL and Givenchy visible from every direction. Needless to say, I bought nothing, but it was still worth going. There's even a roof terrace from which you can see the Opera House, Eiffel Tower and various other sites around Paris. The weather wasn't great, unfortunately, but here are a couple of pictures of the view:

There's always room for a silly partial-group photo too:

This is Paul, Marie, Tom and me (the one with the chubby cheeks- some things never change).

Later, we went to the Notre Dame area and walked around for a bit. It was incredibly busy, so we didn't go inside, but just being in Paris is a great experience. We got more food-- naturally-- and headed towards the Saint Lazarre station because someone had a train to catch. We hung around a bit longer looking round the shops, then it was time for me to head to Paris Nord station and leave myself. It was definitely a day well spent and I certainly want to go back over the school holidays because I have yet to visit the Louvre and, according to Paul (who doesn't like art galleries), it's well worth a visit.

You can in fact expect yet more blogs (!!) because in a week or so I'll be meeting a friend in Lyon for a few days and I'll be meeting Paul in Amsterdam! I'm sure there'll be much to blog about as I've never visited either city. It's also more than likely I'll have a few Jess-moments, so you'll be able to hear all about those, too.

À bientôt!

Recent Travels (Part 1)

I know what you're thinking: 'Two blogs in one week? I don't believe it!' But, yes, your eyes do not deceive you. To recover from the shock, I have made myself a cup of tea (with milk!) and am sitting comfortably at my laptop-- I recommend it if you, too, are in a state of bewilderment.

Anyway, I have been on a couple of travels recently, so I thought I'd keep you updated.

Luxembourg

Only last week, I went on quite a spontaneous trip to Luxembourg for the weekend with a friend who is also an English Assistant. Personally, I felt like I'd been in the same place for too long and needed to see somewhere new quite desperately. Why Luxembourg? No reason in particular other than it wan't too expensive to get to and neither of us had ever been before. We found a lovely hotel online with a pool and a sauna which, in all honesty, we were more excited about than anything...

Once we'd finished work on Friday, we met at the eurostar station and got our train to Brussels where we got our connecting train to Luxembourg. The journey was fairly long and largely uneventful except for a couple of middle aged men who got on about an hour into the journey and even though there were plenty of seats around us free, with no baggage whatsoever, decided to sit next to us on the four-seat section. It was a little too cosy for comfort. I'm not the biggest fan of having my personal space invaded, and particularly not when it's by two musty-smelling people who also stink of alcohol, sleeping with their mouths open. My friend and I shared awkward glances for the next two hours until they thankfully left.

Aside from that, there was an interesting taxi incident when we asked how much it would be to get to our hotel from the station and were suddenly approached by an angry stranger emphatically pointing a little way down the road and saying in broken English 'Taxi rank there. These overpriced!' We glanced at each other a little wide-eyed, not quite knowing what to do, but we decided walking away from the taxi and strange man was definitely the best idea. We got a taxi from the alleged rank and arrived safely at the hotel.

I think the best bit about this hotel was the warm (freshly baked) cookie that they welcome you with. It was heaven.

Not a bad room either!

We went straight into town in search of somewhere to eat and to explore for a bit. Luxembourg is quite an interesting city since it was a fortress and there's a high and low part to the town. In reality, there isn't an awful lot in Luxembourg, except for the generic art gallery and museum, so we just enjoyed the new surroundings and relaxed.

The next day, we got up just in time to go to breakfast where there was every sort of breakfast food you could want: English fry up, fresh waffles, breads and pastries, fruit, cold meats and so on. After watching some tv, we went to the pool and sauna for a bit, which was completely empty-- probably a good thing too since the bikini body is really only a once a year thing...

Our first mission, once dressed, was to find a good patisserie, for we had decided that there was to be no holding back this weekend. We walked into a posh place called 'Oberweis' where we were greeted by a slightly austere waitress who seemed to be annoyed that we'd come, quite frankly, but that didn't stop us ordering two cakes each.

I regret nothing.

It would be an understatement to say that we were feeling a little laden, so we decided to explore the lower part of town and to find Clausen which is allegedly where all the night life takes place, and walk off the food in the process.

Perhaps it was down to the awful weather, but there was not a soul to be seen anywhere. The taxi driver had been most insistent that we go to Clausen because we'd find lots of young people there (or just people in general, I suspect), but really, there was absolutely no one. It's a shame because it did look like it was a good place to be: there were lots of bars and restaurants and it all looked fairly new. We thought we might go back that evening to see, but the weather was awful and we didn't want to go all that way again for nothing. Instead, we bought what turned out to be a particularly awful bottle of white whine, and watched films in the hotel room.

Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Sundays on the continent are everyone's least favourite day of the week, because there is nothing to do. Except for the odd café/restaurant everywhere is shut. We had hoped that since Luxembourg is a capital city, that something would be happening, but no. In fact, spending the whole afternoon there was so inconceivable an idea that we got an earlier train back to Brussels where, surprisingly, people were about and places were open... including an ice-cream café. After that, I must say I was starting to regret the sugar overload, and had to make it up to my digestive system with a few green teas at the train station!

This post is getting a little long, so it looks like there'll be another post coming up shortly! (It's a good job you're sitting down, isn't it?)


Before I leave you, you'll be delighted to know that Luxembourg was not without examples of my incompetency at life. On Saturday morning, having been to the pool and sauna, I was in the shower. It was one of those ones that's just a shower head over a bath which doesn't have the best of grip. (You can see where this is going already, can't you?) I'm not entirely sure how it happened, to be honest. All I know is that one second I was washing my foot, the next I was flopped over the side of the bath with the shower head still in my hand, pointing outwards into the bathroom. It's a good job there's only one of me for the world to handle.

Pride and Pronunciation

It's been a little while since I last blogged-- largely because there's not been much of interest to blog about! It's strange how quickly you get used to new surroundings. I have to say that France really is like home to me: I have a home, a job, colleagues, friends etc...

I am actually really enjoying teaching and I find myself enjoying it more and more. If there's one thing France has taught me, it's that I like being busy, and having an important role in each class is brilliant and very rewarding. Even taking a class through something as simple as a work sheet is actually loads of fun-- although I'm not sure I found it quite so fun when I was at school.

The best thing about grammar exercises in English is that every time a student says English grammar is difficult, I can candidly point out that for regular (i.e the overwhelming majority of) English verbs, conjugation of the simple present requires only the addition of an 's' (or 'es' where the verb ends with a vowel) to the third person singular form (I/you/we/they play; he/she/it plays); that in the simple past, for example, the conjugation doesn't change at all; whereas in French you have three types of verb: verbs ending in '-er', '-ir' and '-re' and that these three types are each conjugated differently, with a different ending for five of the six pronouns. Yes, six. There are two 'you's in French: singular/informal and plural/formal. Phew. Oh and, did I mention irregular verbs? There are many. It would appear that rules are there to be broken in French. Lets compare 'to go' and 'aller'...

To go                        Aller
I go                           Je vais
You go                      Tu vas          (singular/informal)
She/he/it goes             Elle/il va
We go                       Nous allons
You go                      Vous allez      (plural/formal)
They go                     Elles/ils vont


Point made, I feel.


Failing this argument, there's also the gendered nouns approach. (This is possibly my favourite). Take, for example, a chair. In English it is just a chair. In French, however it is 'une chaise', as opposed to 'un chaise', making it a feminine rather than a masculine noun. Since these categories exist, 'it' does not exist in French; so if you want to refer back to the chair, you would refer to it as 'elle' ('she'). All masculine nouns are referred to as 'il' ('he'). Of course, to the anglophone brain, chairs are not women, so this is a most bizarre concept. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there though. The gender-- and quantity-- of whatever it is you're talking about affects any adjectives you put with it. Generally speaking (very generally, in fact), for feminine nouns, you add an 'e' to the end of the adjective; for masculine nouns, nothing; for feminine plural, add 'es' and for masculine plural, add 's'. For example:

La chaise est jolie. The chair is pretty. (She is female after all).

I avoid using beautiful here, because unfortunately this would require an irregular adjective... 'belle' (for feminine nouns) and 'beau' for masculine nouns-- except for when the masculine noun starts with a vowel or a silent 'h', in which case it's 'bel'. A more normal adjective to find with a chair, such as 'expensive', would involve using 'chère', as opposed to 'cher'-- notice the sneaky accent on the feminine form as well as the '-e'. GAH!

English adjectives, of course, are not gender discriminate and really are quite simple-- their placement in the sentence doesn't change either (hurrah!). I haven't even gone into participle agreement in compound tenses by the way. (Don't worry, I'm sparing you).

Whichever approach I choose, we always arrive at the goal:

Me: So which language is easier?
Class: English!
Me: Exactement!

...Well, when it comes to conjugation, anyway. With pronunciation, on the other hand, I really have to apologise on behalf of the anglophone world and say that I really cannot explain why the 'o' in 'woman' is pronounced 'ʊ' ('uh'), whereas in 'women' it is pronounced 'ɪ' ('ih')... ad infintum.


On a more sincere note, it really does make my day when I achieve something with a class. Last week in a few classes I was going over pronunciation-- namely 'th', which has two possible sounds: 'ð' as in 'with' and 'θ' as in 'thing'. This is famously difficult for people of many nations, but the French difficulties with it are the most endearing. (Imagine a year 7 class with their French accents-- nothing short of heart-melting). In one of my 4ème classes (14-15 year olds) we were going over an adaptation of a scene in West Side Story that they had written and I took half the class for about 20 minutes each to go over pronunciation. There were many laughs and many elaborate explanations and demonstrations as to how the two 'th' sounds are created as well as many other sounds. One of the best things to do is to isolate the sound that they have trouble with, like the 'əː' ('uhr') in 'earth' and just repeat the sound over and over-- being sure to make a muppet of yourself doing it first-- and then tell everyone to join in with this strange, monotonous chant. For comic effect later, you could perhaps add an inquisitive tone to the sound, followed by a mildly offended twist and so on, until everyone thinks you're thoroughly insane-- not that I know this first hand of course.

Naturally, some picked it up faster than others, and I wasn't sure how much they'd actually taken in, but at the end we went through the script as a whole class. I listened with slightly bated breath as the verdict on my teaching was quite literally spoken... Whilst some of the words were still a little French sounding, I noticed that lots of the words we had worked on-- especially the 'th' sounds!!-- had really come along. Even some of the students whose progression I wasn't so sure about had made considerable improvement. Although it only seems a small thing, it was incredible how much more English they sounded as they read. I texted a couple of assistant friends after the class because I was so happy about it all, saying I felt like a proud mother-- perhaps a little over the top, but I was very proud of them and so happy that a few minutes' work had made such a difference. That's what teaching is all about, I think.


I know I usually leave you with a little bêtise (bit of stupidity) of mine, but in fact I can't think of one right now, so perhaps next time there'll be a double bill! Until then: bonne journée!