The End of my Year Abroad May 27, 2009

OK so it’s been nearly a week since I got back from France so I thought it was about time I wrote that roundup post I promised. At the time I was too busy in sightseeing mode with Mum and Alan and to be honest the reality of leaving for the last time hadn’t sunk in; I just didn’t know what to write. In our last few days there we had dinner at La Capitainerie, The Salmon House and Quai West, had tea at Jardin des Delices, visited Amiens cathedral and Jules Verne’s house, and Rouen. In Rouen we had a look round its cathedral also, comparing it to Amiens’. They are both built in the same gothic style as Paris’ Notre Dame, but whilst Amiens cathedral has ornate chapels, a bright interior and highly decorative tiled floor, Rouen’s in darker, shabbier and in much worse condition. It suffered greatly from bombing during both wars and restoration work has only recently got underway. In contrast, Rouen’s astronomical clock is a shining glory, and the museum is fascinating. You can see the pictures I took in Rouen here: Rouen.

A typical street in Rouen

The Gros Horloge astronomical clock

Rouen cathedral seen from the clock tower

So, how should I sum up my year abroad? The truth is, I don’t think I can. It was too much of a rollercoaster of different emotions and experiences to be summed up with one conclusion. In some ways I hated it; the first semester was so difficult in terms of settling in and getting my head around the way the system worked, the weather didn’t help, and then of course the second semester was frustrating in many ways because of the strike. I don’t think I truly felt settled or confidently understood the way things worked until about January. On the other hand, I had some great experiences, especially on my travels to Barcelona and Brussels. It was great being so close to Paris as well, and if it hadn’t been for the strike I wouldn’t have had so much time to do other things and make the most of it this second semester. This time in France has put me off wanting to live in the country in the future – things may not be rosy in the UK but neither are they in France; the issues might be different but the outcome is the same. However, the time abroad has brought me a greater appreciation of European culture so I would definitely still consider life in continental Europe rather than staying in the UK. In terms of language, I don’t feel my French has improved that much. I picked up some more specific vocabulary but I didn’t do enough difficult writing to improve that. My listening skills have improved a bit I think, but I have to say that day-to-day life conversations aren’t usually enough to improve degree-level French.

So there you have it; a truly mixed bag of conclusions from a year abroad in France. I look forward to travelling more after graduation and in the more distant future, especially in Europe. If (when) I spend some more prolonged periods of time in foreign countries I may resurrect this blog under a modified title to continue posting about life abroad. Until then, adieu and feel free to watch my Life in Cornwall blog, which no doubt will see some action over the next few months!

Bidding Adieu to Amiens May 22, 2009

Well I’m off home this morning! My stuff is all packed up and I’m just waiting for mum and Alan to arrive so we can load up the car, then I’ll clean my room over and check out! Our Eurotunnel is at about midday so if all goes to plan we’ll be back in Cornwall by this evening. The last couple of days have been quite manic; we went to Rouen on Wednesday and did various things in Amiens yesterday. Fortunately the weather came nice this week so it’s been lovely and sunny. I know I should write a post summing up my year abroad but I can’t seem to find what to say just now, and I don’t have time to sit and stare at the screen until I do! Once I’m home and settled back in I’ll sit down to reflect and write something, I think it will be easier when I’m not still here. Just before this post there is one summarising my year abroad in numbers, but I think there really should be one in words as well! See you in England…

My Year Abroad in Numbers May 22, 2009

Arrived 11th September 2008

Departed 22nd May 2009

28 weeks, 6 days spent in France, including 3 days in Barcelona, 2 days in Brussels, 6 days in Paris

7 weeks, 1 day spent in UK on holiday

5 return flights to the UK

Number of washing up liquid bottles used – 2

Number of laundry loads – 19

Days/Weeks of strike action – 5 general days, 16 weeks of education sector strike; 2nd February – 25th May (ongoing).

Number of teaching days at campus blockaded due to the strike : 37; 19th March – 22nd May (ongoing).

Number of modules taken / exams sat – 15 modules overall / 13 exams taken in semester 1, none in semester 2 due to the strike.

Number of Jour Fériés – 9; Toussaint 1st November, Armistice 1918 11th November, Christmas Day & Boxing Day 25th & 26th December, New Year’s Day 1st January, Easter Monday 13th April, Worker’s Day 1st May, Victory Day 1945 8th May, Ascension 21st May.

Variation in exchange rate – from parity during the Christmas break to about £1 = €1.12

New friends made as a result of year abroad – 10; Marion, Katie, Alice, Vicky, Joe, Oli, Sonia, Blake, Nichole, Christine

Les Hortillonnages and la Nuit des Musées May 17, 2009

Yesterday was quite a random day in all; in the morning I went for my last supermarket shop to get my dinner for tonight, and in the afternoon I went into town to take some pictures of favourite places like Jardin des Délices and Retroviseur, to buy some more macarons and to meet Sonia and friends for a walk around the Hortillonnages. The Hortillonnages are an area of 300 hectares of wetland, very close to the centre of town, that have been inhabited and cultivated for 2000 years. Today only a few farmers remain and only about 25 hectares are cultivated; the rest has become a sort of park or fishing lakes. There are paths through parts of it, but to see all of it the best way is to take the punt barge from Quai Bélu and be poled through the narrow channels, between the islands of land. Some islands are just wildlife habitat, others are farmed, and others still have sheds or houses on them. Each house has it’s own bridge and some have even built steeply curved driveways over the channels. Each seems to have their own little boat as well.

Shed on one of the Hortillonnage islands

After we’d walked round a small part of the Hortillonnages (we seemed to have picked a path that didn’t go very far before we got cut off by water), we headed back towards town and the Parc St. Pierre, the big park that everyone chills and picnics in. There are also allotments along one side of it, which are all full of produce. Keeping allotments seems to be quite popular here; passing through Longeau on the train to Amiens you see lots of them and I’ve glimpsed a few in a green space between some house on the bus a few times; basically wherever they can be squeezed in, they go. We wandered through town a bit, got some crepes from a street stall, and sat in Place Gambetta until it started to rain, whereupon we dived into Mezzo di Pasta for a couple of hours, taking our time over some drinks and pasta.

At about 8pm we went to meet some others outside Maison de la Culture to start our Nuit des Musées tour. La Nuit des Musées is an annual European event where museums put on special tours or open their doors out of hours, and it’s free. It’s a sort of publicity event to try and encourage people to come to the museums who might not normally come. Two places in Amiens were taking part; la Musée de Picardie and Jules Verne’s house. Unfortunately, the Musée de Picardie is actually closed all this year because they are doing some major repair and improvement works; replacing the roof and putting in a new lift among other things. However, as was explained to us, they still wanted to be a part of la Nuit so they had invited a group of artists to put in a light installation in their courtyard gardens. To be honest it wasn’t all that impressive; partly because it wasn’t actually finished so there was no atmosphere, and partly because it hadn’t gone totally dark so the lights weren’t so bright. I still took a few photos though.

The second part of the tour was to Jules Verne’s house, but that didn’t open until 10pm so we wandered in that direction and stopped in a bar by the Cirque just down the road from it to wait. They had Eurovision on the big screen, so that was a laugh. I didn’t see the UK’s performance but it was fun trying to explain the concept of Eurovision to the Americans! We got to Jules Verne’s house just after 10 and there were so many people there! The house is not that big and the tower part has a limit of 12 people at once, so they only let 20 or so people into the house at once. This meant that we were standing in line to get in for an hour, which we weren’t too impressed with. The line was just as long behind us, and their last admission was going to be at 12.30, so they also asked us not to take our time looking round the house, which I thought was a bit cheeky. Unfortunately, all video and photos are banned inside the house which I was very disappointed about, especially since there were some wonderful old posters! There was a room devoted to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which had portholes and all sorts of marine memorabilia, and one devoted to Around the World in 80 Days. I particularly liked that room because the floor was a big map with the around the world route marked on it, and the writing desk has the globe on which Jules Verne drew the journeys of his characters. Up in the tower there were stacks of huge old books, but there was nothing to tell us what they are. The house is certainly full of some very old, valuable and totally irreplaceable artifacts. I took some photos in the courtyard outside; the tower of the house has a giant blue globe on the top of it and one wall of the courtyard is covered in a mural depicting features of Jules Verne’s stories.

Jules Verne's house with globe tower

Wall Mural

You can see all the photos I took yesterday here: Album 3.

One Week to go! May 15, 2009

Just one week left! This time next week I will be well on my way to Cornwall. I’m sure it will seem like less than a week though as I have several things lined up to do; tomorrow I’m going to town and meeting up with Sonia, we’ll go for a walk round the hortillonages and then in the evening there’s a “night of the museum” event going on which involves a light show in the gardens of the Musée de Picardie and an evening tour around Jules Verne’s house. Sunday will be a day of chilling and then on Monday the packing and cleaning begins, with a short break in the evening to have a farewell dinner with the Cardiff crowd, who I haven’t actually seen since February. Tuesday to Friday will zip by because of mum and Alan being here.

I now know I won’t have any more assessments or classes between now and leaving as well, since the blockades have been voted through again until Monday, and I wouldn’t go to classes even if we had them from Tuesday-Friday for obvious reasons. One of my lecturers emailed me on Wednesday about coming in for an assessment on the 19th, which I replied to saying I couldn’t do but that I could do Thursday, Friday or Monday. I also explained that I was leaving on the 22nd. Well he didn’t reply until today, and suggested an alternative date – the 26th! I honestly don’t know if he just didn’t read my email properly or what, but now we have established that there is no time both of us are available, so there’ll be no assessment for that. I haven’t heard from any of my other lecturers and I doubt very much I will now. Even if I do find an email in my inbox on Monday the reply will be “sorry, too late.” I don’t intend to rush work and I need time to prepare for leaving.

So at this point, I think I can officially call time on my academic year abroad! Next week will just be socialising and packing.

A Day in (and under) Paris May 14, 2009

I did head for Paris yesterday in the end, and gambled with the weather. As it turned out, it didn’t rain at all and was even quite warm with a peek of sunshine. Certainly enough for people to be out lounging and picnicking in droves in the Jardins de Luxembourg. I didn’t get everything on my list done, but I did see the things I most wanted to see. I ran out of time as I wanted to get the train back before 5pm in order not to have to pay extra on my train fare, but my feet were aching so much by that point I don’t think I could have faced walking round all the other things on my list! I can always do those another time; I doubt very much it’ll be the last time I go to Paris.

To begin with I headed the furthest south in the city I’ve ever been, to Place Denfert-Rochereau and the Catacombs. Although macabre and a little claustrophobic this was something I really wanted to experience. I had it down on my list to do on my first “grown-up” trip to Paris two years ago, but never got round to it.

Walls of bones in the ossuary

The Catacombs de Paris are an underground network of tunnels leading to an ossuary containing the remains of around 6 million people. They were created in the 18th century as a solution to the problem of disease caused by Paris’ many overcrowded city cemetaries, in particular the Cimetiere des Innocents which was in close proximity to the sprawling and busy food market of les Halles. The transferral of remain from les Innocents began on 7th April 1786 and continued for two years, with the remains being carried in carts accompanied by a religious procession under cover of darkness. Remains from all the cemetaries of Paris were deposited in the Catacombs until 1814. It became somewhat of a curiosity, with many noble men and ladies paying visits to the Catacombs. They were eventually opened to the public for a couple of days each week, and are now open every day except Mondays. The section of catacombs which are open now is 2km long, but in reality most of Paris is hollow underground! The carrieres are the former quarry galleries, of which some are open to the public, and then of course there are the vast sewer network which follows the street layout, and the 14 metro and 4 RER lines! All this tunnel-work under the city means that there is a whole department whose job it is to keep track of all the tunnels, maintain their strength and monitor all new building work to ensure no collapses occur.

As well as the Catacombs I had a small list of curious places in Paris that I wanted to see; such as the oldest tree, planted in 1601; the oldest house, built in 1407, and a wall with a cannonball from the revolution of 1830 still embedded in it. I had lunch in a lovely café called Berko on Rue Rambuteau, which consisted of a salmon and spinach quiche, salade du jour and a small sweet tart for €9.50. It looked like this;

Lunch

Pudding

Unfortunately the two cake shops on Rue Rambuteau I wanted to visit; Pain du Sucre and Pralus, were both closed, so I continued on my wandering tour of curious places to an Astrological Tower near the Louvre entrance to les Halles, an ornate entrance to the Palais Royal metro station and a WWI mobilisation poster still on a wall of a building near Place Concorde. By that point my time had run out, so I didn’t get to see the Chinese house, art nouveau building, or the house designed by the same architect who did the curly-wurly metro signs I like, but never mind they can wait for another day!
As always, full sets of photos can be found here: Album 1, Album 2 Album 1 also contains photos from trips in 2007 and 2008; yesterday’s pictures start with the Catacombs on page 2.

I didn’t get back too late in the evening so I went out with Sonia and some other Erasmus/ISEP students to Retroviseur to enjoy the usual Wednesday night Jazz. They were actually selling a CD of their music for 5 euros, which I considered a good investment. I didn’t take any more film as I was too involved in conversation but as I plan to take mum and Alan there next week I might take some then.

I will leave you with a couple more photos from Paris.

Jardins de Luxembourg

A hazy Eiffel tower overlooking Place de Concorde

Rain, more rain…and some cakes! May 12, 2009

Well I’m not impressed because it’s now chucking it down and it’s forecast for rain and even thunderstorms in Amiens and Paris for the entire week. I was planning to go to Paris tomorrow, which had been the only sunny day forecast, but I’m not keen on the idea of going in the rain. Although half of my trip will be indoors or underground (in the metro and the Catacombs), much of it is also outdoors seeing various interesting and unusual architecture and monuments off the usual tourist trail. All I need is one sunny, or at the very least dry day!

I didn’t go to the AG yesterday as I needed to get laundry done that had been put off from Friday, and as the AG is bang in the middle of the day it was too awkward to do both. I haven’t heard the results of the vote but I don’t think it’s any different. To be honest I really don’t care at this point either; even if the blockades came down I wouldn’t go to class for just one week.

On Saturday the internet went down which was rather irritating and left me with little to do. I went to town, wandered around a bit and browsed a 2nd hand bookshop where I bought a 1940’s french travel guide to Great Britain. Should be an interesting read, not only from the point of view of the era in which it was written but also because of it’s French perspective! It even contains a chapter on Cornwall. I also indulged myself and bought some macarons (little round confections somewhere between a meringue and a cake that come in all sorts of flavours) from one of the best confectioners in town, near the cathedral. On my last trip home I bought some from the airport after having read much about them on a foodie/travel blog I read; MyKugelhopf (link in the list on the right). These are Parisian macarons I’m talking about; very different from macarons d’Amiens.

Macarons de Paris

Macarons d'Amiens

Macarons d’Amiens are more like the coconut macaroon cakes familiar in the UK, except they don’t contain coconut but are based on almonds, honey and fruit. They have been described as a “soft biscuit” and the taste compared to Italien amarreti. In contrast, the Macarons de Paris are based on meringue and are what most French people would think of if you just said “macaron”; it is the traditional form whereas the Amiens macaron is a speciality of the Picardie region. The Parisian macaron is much lighter, and consists of two meringue shells sandwiching a layer of cream. The curious thing about them is that although the outer shell is crunchy like sugar meringue, the inside is softer and more like a cake; I’m not quite sure how they engineer that! What I love about them is that they come in any flavour you can think of; the patisseries usually do a run of a few different flavours and change some each time, and there seems to be an unwritten competition among the most renowned names to create the most bizarre flavour! My favourite is caramel au beurre salé; caramel made with salted butter. It’s simply amazing, and I bought three of that flavour! To make up the half dozen I picked one each of fruits rouge balsamique, rose pétale and mirabelle. That would be red fruits with balsamic vinegar (amazing flavour, definitely a close favourite to the caramel one!); rose flavour, which was nice but too perfumy and I probably wouldn’t have it again; and plum brandy, which I haven’t eaten yet. They had about 5 or 6 other flavours on offer; some the usual vanilla, chocolate etc, and they had some other fruit flavours like lemon but I can’t remember the rest. When I eventually get to Paris, part of tour will be to some patisserie addresses highly praised on MyKugelhopf, so next week I shall probably have more macarons as well as some other delights!

It’s still raining heavily so I don’t think I will get to the supermarket today. I can last until Thursday before I really need to go so it’s not disastrous. Today I might do a bit of cleaning and tidying up, not sure what else. Indoor activities anyway! There isn’t much left for me to do until it gets to next Monday really; Monday and Tuesday I will start packing, do my last load of laundry, and give my room a deep clean so I only have to give it a quick wipe on Friday morning. On Wednesday we’ll go for a day out somewhere, probably Rouen, and on Thursday I imagine mum will want to do a bit of shopping in Amiens. My plan is to pack at least half of my stuff before they arrive late Tuesday, so that I don’t have to spend all of Thursday packing instead, just a few hours. In just 10 days I shall be leaving French soil!

One Week Down… May 8, 2009

… and two to go! Time does feel like it’s creeping by although I suppose this week hasn’t gone too slowly. Next week is likely to be a bit worse as I have now truly finished all my work. I wrote two short commentarys on plays for one of my literature modules and got them emailed off, and although I emailed my sociolinguistique lecturer at the beginning of the week she hasn’t got back to me yet. So, for the time being I have officially finished all my work! It remains to be seen if I get sent anything else in the next week. In my emails I’ve made it clear that although I’m leaving on the 22nd, my deadline for finishing work is the 19th as that’s when mum and Alan arrive, so any work arriving later than Friday next week will get refused I’m afraid! I don’t expect to be sent anything much anyway; perhaps one piece of work for sociolinguistique but the rest have either been signed off already or the lecturers don’t appear to use email, so I’m unlikely to get anything from them as we can’t get in touch.

I am hoping the weather will clear up a bit for this weekend; Sunday has been forecast sunny, no clouds one minute and then raining the next, but if we get a nice day I shall go laze in the park with a book. All this week it’s been breezy, sunny and cloudy at the same time and just now we had a little downpour, so it obviously can’t decide what it’s doing.

I didn’t go to the AG yesterday in the end, and it seems not many other people did either as the report posted on the Comité de Mobilisation website said that attendance was low due to today being a jour férié (i.e everyone’s gone home for a long weekend). Still, there were enough people to continue to vote through the blockades; by 231 votes to 145 apparently. No doubt Monday’s attendance will be up again; it’s always busier as people want to know what’s going to happen for the week. I also noted the results of Monday’s AG at the science faculty; they actually voted out the blockades this week. However this doesn’t affect me since my only science class should have been today, which as it’s jour férié wouldn’t have taken place in any case. It remains to be seen what happens next week; if they still have no blockades then technically I might have a class next Friday, but I’m rather disinclined to go since it’s only one class – what’s the point?  As for assessments, it seems everyone is voting not to schedule exams at all and directing the blame at the government if it messes up people’s education. I also noticed a report of one or two lecturers on hunger strike (in Caen and Reims) until the government repeals the acts it pushed through during the easter break.

Haven’t got a whole lot of plans for next week; basically I wake up and see what I feel like doing for the day. Today I sent off my shortlist for final year Forensics projects to Keele (I recieved the list earlier this week), but I won’t hear which one of my list I’ve been allocated until September. I still haven’t had a list for French. I’ll probably go into town tomorrow just for a change of scenery; I haven’t left campus since I got back last week. Next week I’m going to go to Paris for at least one day; there’s a few bits I want to see and do, markets, food shops, out of the ordinary sightseeing and the Catacombs. If I don’t get it all done in one day I’ll just go back for a second round! I really have little else to do.

La Rentrée May 4, 2009

Time is ticking by oh so slowly it seems! I am trying to take my time over the things I do and only do one or two things per day to keep myself entertained but already I’m bored. Life is so much more interesting back home! I will go out and socialise a bit this week but for now I’ve got a few bits of work to tat about with. Yesterday I had a lovely long lie in and then spent the afternoon tidying up some loose ends; namely finishing another Spanish grammar test I was sent over the holidays and emailing that off along with the written version of my Pais Vasco presentation. I also emailed my sociolinguistique lecturer to let her know when I’ll be leaving and asked for a final assessment, and I emailed the Forensics department at Keele to chase up the final year project list, which it transpires is being released this week.

Today I let my accommodation staff know the date I’m leaving, and rather handily before I got there I had a note under my door (as did everyone) letting us know what we have to do before we leave, so I didn’t have to ask that. I need to give them back a form with my bank details on so they can transfer me back the remainder of my deposit; when I went to pay this month’s rent they said they would reduce the amount (since I’m leaving before the end of the month) and that rather than pay again they’ll just take it out of my deposit. Other than that I haven’t done much today, just tatted about and went to the AG.

That really wasn’t any different than before the holidays, just perhaps a bit more lively. Numbers were trailing off as people got bored and couldn’t be bothered to come and vote but today it was very busy as it seemed everyone wanted to know what might have changed and what would happen about exams. Some people have done an about turn and are now voting against the blockades because they don’t want exams to be put back to September, but as many people pointed out it’s already too late really, and it won’t change the fact many lecturers are still on strike and several administrative staff have “resigned” so organisation of exams is very unlikely to happen no matter what the result of the blockade votes are. Anyway, today there weren’t enough “no” votes to make a difference. Here’s the motions:

1) Motion to ask lecturers that, in the hypothetical case of exams being scheduled, they only be on material covered in lectures or other notes and that they not take place in July or August – passed by visible majority.

2) Motion put forward by the CNU; to refuse any evaluations of this semester and that no exams of any kind be organised – passed by visible majority.

3) Continuation of strike – passed by visible majority (now entering week 14)

4) Continuation of occupation – passed by visible majority

5) Continuation of blockades – passed by 442 votes to 291 (bringing the total number of teaching days that the campus buildings have been blockaded to 26)

The next AG is on Thursday at 11am but I’m not sure I’ll go to that. I was getting a little bored before Easter of sitting through 2 hours of speeches and debate just to get the results of the voting, although there were a few interesting moments. I can’t see the point in Thursday’s meeting though as Friday is férié and there will be another meeting on Monday if the AG pattern continues.

So there you have it; a rentrée with no lectures! Vive l’université française!

The Finish Line In Sight May 2, 2009

Just as Obama is at the end of the beginning having just finished his first 100 days in office, I’m finding myself at the beginning of the end with just 20 days left of my year abroad! I will be officially checking out of France on Friday 22nd, barring any travel restrictions due to H1N1 flu or port barricades due to strikes! It feels strange to come back to Amiens and not immediately book my next flights home, but the tunnel and hotel are already booked for mum to come over with the car for moving out. Today’s journey back from Exeter went normally with no hitches. I felt more alert than usual this morning but it was still satisfying to know that there will be no more 3am starts for that 6.30am departure from Exeter!

I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing over the next three weeks – well two weeks really since Mum and Alan arrive on Tuesday 19th so for most of that week we will be doing stuff out and about before I have to pack. We may go to Rouen for a day as it’s not far and I stayed there briefly last summer as part of tour with Concert Band, but I’d like to see more of the city. Other than that I will probably just be finishing off my work, skating, maybe take a day or weekend trip to Paris and if Sonia has any money and/or energy left after her mammoth easter holiday travelling we might take another short break to somewhere.

I’m a bit out of touch with the strike situation but as far as I can tell from reports posted online nothing’s changed. I expect there will be an AG on Monday as usual so I can get up to speed. For simplicity’s sake now it would be better for me for the blocades to continue, as otherwise I expect some of my classes would resume although I doubt very much there would be any assessments this month, let alone before I leave. One of my modules was signed off before the Easter holidays, and after I turn in another assignment that’s sat in my email I will get a grade for Spanish grammar. I’m going to write two commentary pieces on plays for my French Literature module and email them off, although I haven’t heard from the lecturer in months. Once I let my Sociolinguistique lecturer know when I’m leaving I expect she’ll send me something to complete by way of assessment, and I’m going to try to get my Spanish presentation emailed to the lecturer for that class. That will only leave Spanish translation, Medieval French, Approche Litteraire du Picard and History of Scientific Ideas with no grades, although for the first two I have grades from last semester.

Here’s to hoping everything runs smoothly over the next few weeks! I have enjoyed this semester more than the first but I’m still excited to have made it and be finishing the year, and I can’t wait to be home for summer proper!