Who says the French have no sense of humour? November 29, 2008

I just found this article while browsing the internet over my morning coffee, and had to share it here! Partly for it’s bizarrity, but partly because of the choice quotes.

Basically a company has made and released for sale voodoo dolls of Nicolas Sarkozy. He decided this wasn’t on and took them to court to have the dolls banned, saying that it was “incitement to hatred” and offensive. However the court decided (quite rightly in my opinion) that banning them would constitute an overeaction and that the dolls are within the rights of free expression. So the company has been ordered to pay Sarkozy a “symbolic sum of €1 in damages” and the dolls must carry labels saying that spearing them is “an offense to Sarkozy’s dignity”. Priceless! Apparently there was also one made of Segolene Royal, but she said she decided not to take action against them because “I have a sense of humour”.

Here is the full article link: BBC News: Sarkozy Voodoo Doll

Three busy weeks November 28, 2008

I feel like I’m standing on the top of the hill, looking down towards Christmas and about to start a mad, headlong rush into chaos over the next three weeks! I’m sure it won’t be as dramatic as all that, but where I’ve been complaining of boredom and no work over the last week or so, the next three look to keep me busy enough to make up for it! It starts on Monday really, with a two hour TAB lecture and a 4 hour chemistry lab – when normally I have nothing on a Monday! At some point I’ll have to write up the report for that lab over next week, as well as the other work I’ve been set. Mum has yet to confirm the dates she’s visiting but I’m still hopeful she will come at the end of next week. Then, week 2 arrives and although I don’t have lab that week there will be other work, a birthday party and then a meetup with other Keele students in Paris at the weekend. And before I know it, week 3 will have rolled around with it’s packing preparations, organisations, a final lab session with a report to write and another Spanish exam! Not to mention Christmas shopping…

The Christmas market has set up in Amiens and all along the main street there are rows of little red and white huts. I haven’t been when the market’s open yet; I saw them while walking through town with Marion, Pauline, Anne-Sophie and another friend Marie on Thursday night, but they’d all closed up and there were just a few men with big dogs patrolling up and down. We had eaten at St. Leu RestoU again, and then hung out for a bit at Pauline’s and Marion’s, but they went off to the Millennium nightclub which I decided against because it’s out of town and the earliest shuttle bus back to campus wouldn’t have got there until 3.25am, which I decided was too late even without an 8am lecture! Hopefully another time we will have a get together with drinks at someone’s place and bring the Cardiff group in as well.

I got the results of some more Spanish exams this week too; I got 11/20 for grammar and 8/20 for Version Translation, 9/20 for Theme. I was disappointed with these last two as I expected to do a little better, but in fact the lowest class marks were 1/20 and 2/20 respectively (not necessarily the same person), so I wasn’t the worst! I shouldn’t be too hard on myself either, as after all it’s translation between two foreign languages for me; a position no one else in the class is in, to my knowledge.

Tomorrow brings shopping and possibly an ice hockey match to watch in the evening, and Sunday brings preparation for lab on Monday, as I practically have to translate the lab script. I will be going skating again this weekend as well although I haven’t decided which day yet. The forecast is hinting at snow again, and it’s certainly been very cold this week so I will wait to see what happens. Perhaps I will get some good pictures this weekend where it disappointed last time!

Feeling Christmassy November 25, 2008

In the end we did have a flurry of snow on Sunday, it snowed for a couple of hours but disappointingly didn’t stick, and soon turned to rain. Many other places had lots of snow and I had been looking forward to going out and taking some pictures, so although I hate being cold I’m hoping it will have another go soon! The Christmas market started yesterday and runs through until the end of December. I haven’t been yet but I will probably get my first taste of it on Saturday. There’s plenty of time to savour the atmosphere anyway! It is really starting to feel Christmassy now, even though we still haven’t quite broken into December yet the weather, the lights going up in town, people talking about it and hearing Christmas tunes (already) playing in shops has made it feel like Christmas time for me! There are only a few weeks to go, I suppose.

Yesterday I had a Techniques d’analyses biochimiques lecture in the late afternoon but I didn’t do anything else. I had good intentions of going into town a bit early to do some shopping but the weather was grey and drizzly and in the end I couldn’t work up the motivation. Today I had the final mid-term test of all my modules; Methodologie de Recherche. Basically it’s all about online library catalogues and databases of publications, and which contain which types of publication and subject areas, and how best to use them. Not terribly complicated and I feel the test went quite well. The answers are practically there on the computer screen in front of you! I also got the results from one of the first mid-terms I took; Medieval French, and I got 12/20 which seemed to be a respectable mark. I’d got the basics right, the parts I got wrong were irregularities which I’d forgotten.

Today while waiting for one of my classes I saw a girl go to greet her friend with la bise. Her friend held out her hands and said “Oh no, don’t, I’m ill!”. I thought that was quite considerate of her but how annoying it must be to have to do that every time you run into a friend when you’re ill! Speaking of running into friends I bumped into Marion as I left the library and she was on her way to an English exam, so I hope that went well for her. This week may see a repeat of last week’s Thursday night RestoU meal, especially since I can take advantage of no Friday 8am lecture!

Tomorrow I’m back to four hours of Chemistry in the morning (oh joy), and then I will probably nip to the supermarket after lunch but before my Spanish grammar class. I’ll have a bit more work to do over the next week by the looks of it, which I’m actually looking forward to after last week’s thumb twiddling! Oh by the way, Speculoos yoghurt was a massive disappointment, it was far too sweet. On to the next random food item!

……snow? November 22, 2008

A short post just to sum up today. I got caught out by the weather! The forecast was for snow, but since I woke up to blue sky and bright sunshine I thought that it must just be a bit confused. I got ready to go to town and in faffing about managed to miss two buses. I headed out the door to catch the 11.50, wearing pumps with no socks and a light woolen 3/4 gilet over a t-shirt (and jeans). Stepped out the door…..and was promptly blasted by an icy wind. Hmm. Did I go back for more layers and boots, miss the bus and wait another half hour, or did I decide I could cope, ignore the cold and get the bus? I went with option number two, which although my hands were already tingling after the two minute walk to the bus, didn’t seem so drastic at the time. It was ok when the sun was out, walking briskly with my hands jammed in my pockets, but when the street was in shadow and the wind conspiring to blow straight down it, I was cold! I spent a couple of hours diving in and out of heated shops; I had a quick browse in Miss Coquines but they had no shoes that took my fancy (I’ve already bought two pairs from there), reccy’d the christmas gift potential in Galeries Lafayette, and browsed the dvd’s in FNAC. I decided I needed some new jeans and checked out the options in Camaieu, Pimkie, Mim and CacheCache but although I found and tried on some I liked the look of, eventually walked out of all four with nothing.

I had a quick panini in a cafe by Mim for lunch and then went to meet Katie to head for the ice rink. Faith couldn’t come in the end due to lack of funds but hopefully she will be able to some other time. It was a good session; we went for the start and it was very quiet for the first hour, the ice was pristine and it was very relaxing just skating round and chatting. During the second hour it got busier and the ice got chopped up because of a load of guys racing to a dead stop on their hockey skates, so we called it a day after two hours of skating. Both of us felt like we’d had a workout! I tried to get one of the staff to explain the timetable to me but she just gave me the one I’d picked up before, which appears to be out of date and doesn’t correspond with the online information. From what she was telling me it seems that the rink is open much more often than I thought, including two sessions every sunday, so I should be able to go every week.

After skating we went and rounded up Joe, Vicky and Ollie and headed for Jardin des Déices for a chocolat chaud. Unfortunately they were full indoors and no one fancied sitting outside in the cold, so we continued on to the Forum, another good cafe. They were also busy but managed to squeeze us into a booth. This time I had chocolat viennois – basically hot chocolate with whipped cream, instead of the chocolat kirsch I had last time. Both were nice and warming on a cold winter’s day! I paid a quick visit to Champion and the British aisle again where I decided on a jar of Colman’s mustard, although I’m still not quite sure what to put it with! By the time I got the bus to come back to campus it was dark and colder, and I was envying everyone their big coats and scarves! It took a good half hour for my fingers to stop feeling numb once I got back, and I’d even been wearing gloves! (I only had those with me because you have to wear them on the rink). I suspect that I may wake up to a dusting of snow tomorrow, if so I’ll have to get out and take some photos.

Time flies… November 21, 2008

Well this week seems to have disappeared, the weekend has rolled around and I’ve barely posted! To be fair it’s been a normal week of lectures and I haven’t done much of interest. Last night I went out for dinner with Marion, Anne-Sophie and another of their friends, Pauline. We ate at the RestoU in St. Leu; one of the several university restaurants. The university restaurant is almost legendary in France. For €2.80 you get a hot main meal, drink, starter, dessert and either cheese or fruit. Last night I had chilli con carne and it was delicious, not the horrible canteen food I was apprehensive of! Afterwards we went to hang out at Pauline’s colocation nearby, until they went out for drinks. I decided to come back to campus because I wanted to be able to get up for my 8am lecture!

On the bus on the way back I experienced the ticket inspectors for the second time. Three of them jumped on the bus at a stop on a residential road not far from campus, and in two minutes, by the time the bus arrived at campus, they’d checked everyone’s ticket or card. As I got off the bus I noticed there was an Ametis van pulled up behind it so I suppose it trails the bus so that the inspectors can get back to town without having to ride the bus all the way round! It was unexpected, I thought they only checked passes at the main depot by the station, but it’s good to know they can jump on anywhere.

I was glad I made it to my lecture this morning, although I was tired, because we got told the dates of our last four sessions. We’ve switched back to Monday afternoon for next week, but we don’t have Friday 8am (yay!), then both sessions the week after and the final session will be Monday 8th. This is good because it means that I won’t have to get up at 6.30am the day I fly home for christmas, so I won’t be so tired travelling in the evening, and also I will have more time to sort things out that day as well. It remains to be seen if I’ll also have my two Spanish translation lectures that Friday, I am expecting to, because you can never practice translation too much! I had my mid-term exam in that today, although it was only a 1 hour paper. We had a text to translate from Spanish to French, followed by 10 grammatical phrases and another small text to translate from French to Spanish. I have found over the weeks that Version (Spanish to French) is easier for me than Theme (French to Spanish). I can’t really explain this; although my French is better than my Spanish, either way I have to deal with both! Perhaps it’s because there are similarities between the languages, and English, so if I have the Spanish in front of me I don’t find it so hard to think of the French as the reverse; thinking of the Spanish when I’ve got the French in front of me. Anyway the results of the exam will prove my theory right or wrong next week! There was another strike yesterday that only affected one of my classes; my 9am Spanish grammar. Many education staff across the country walked out, barricaded schools and went on marches to protest about proposed education reforms. It seems November is the month of strikes!

The supermarket today yielded another laugh and interesting food item to try; once again from my favourite yoghurt brand Mamie Nova; Speculoos flavoured yoghurt! Yes, yoghurt that is flavoured like those little oblong caramelised biscuits you get in hotels and restaurants with your coffee. Why do we only have boring yoghurt in the UK? Tomorrow I shall be going shopping in the morning and skating with Faith and Katie in the afternoon. I’ve been preparing for my christmas shopping this last week so I’m going to have a scout in the gifty shops and also the Galeries Lafayette department store. I need to get mum’s birthday present as well because hopefully she will be coming to visit next weekend.

The calendar is filling up and there’s only four weeks to fill between now and Friday 19th so it feels like time is racing by at the moment!

A relaxed weekend November 17, 2008

I didn’t really get up to much this weekend, it was generally grey, dull and drizzly and not really conducive to going out and about! I caught up on some sleep and although I did go to town on Saturday, I was only there for about an hour. I wandered aimlessly about town and the market but discovered that I wasn’t really in the mood for shopping, so I got a mediterranean baguette from my regular boulangerie/patisserie for lunch and then did my grocery shopping at Champion. I think they have the best range of things although they aren’t the cheapest, but because they’re in town I don’t often do my shopping there; E. Leclerc is just a 5 minute walk from my halls so that’s where I usually go. Anyway I had been told by the Cardiff students that Champion now has an international foods section (it’s their nearest supermarket), including a British aisle! So I had to go an investigate. Sure enough, there were items like Bird’s custard and Bisto gravy, Marmite and Colman’s mustard staring at me from the shelf, but for the time being I contented myself with a can of Dr. Pepper until I can think of a good meal to use the other things in (not all at once!).

Sunday night brought a welcome break from the quiet of campus with an evening of fine dining in St. Leu. Katie, Alice, Joe, Vicky and I all went out for dinner to a place called “A La Capitainerie”, which is  one of the many restaurants lining the river on Quai Bélu in St. Leu. We chose from their set evening menu, which included an aperatif, starter, main, dessert and coffee for €26.90 or £22. This is very good value for Amiens, and even more so for St. Leu where a main course alone can be up to €20. I chose duck terrine to start, followed by lamb shank and chocolate soufflé, and it was all delicious. The restaurant itself is huge but we were sat in the covered heated front terrace which made it quite a cosy setting. There were quite long gaps between courses, which would have annoyed some people, but actually made for a very relaxing meal. Because you have time to chatter away between courses, you talk less during each dish and therefore appreciate the food more, because you’re not hurrying to finish a mouthful so you can say something before the conversation moves on! It was quiet while we were there; there were never more than 5 tables at a time, but I noticed that they were still serving starters and mains at 10pm as we were finishing our coffee – on a Sunday! That would be unheard of in the UK in a similar situation, I’m sure of it.

I had no lectures or anything today so I took the opportunity to tidy up my room, chuck out the recycling and do some laundry. Ah yes, the laundry saga continues! Washing is no longer free – I knew that was too good to be true. Instead you have to pay by moneo card, which you can get free from the restoU. However, I’ve never needed one up til now so I had to trek over and get one, which took a while because it was lunchtime. Unfortunately the top-up machine wouldn’t recognise my bank card (didn’t surprise me much, it’s not french), and the only other method of topping up is with coins, minimum amount €10……which I didn’t have. So, I trekked off to Leclerc down the road and bought two pens with a €20 note, and then proceeded to ask for most of my change, in well, change. This annoyed the cashier but I was past caring. The system I have to deal with has caused me problems, therefore I shall cause problems for someone else. Deal with it! So I got my €10 in coins and topped up my card, got my laundry washed. Then the dryer wouldn’t accept my 20cent pieces so I got them changed for a €1 piece, which it accepted, but refused to switch on. So my room now smells of damp laundry and I have things hanging everywhere, because by that point I really couldn’t be bothered to drag my heavy, damp laundry into town to a launderette.

At least tomorrow should be nice and simple, I have a day full of lectures!

La Grève Encore! November 14, 2008

I found out a bit more about the strike yesterday and today, mainly because I was also affected by it! It seems that the Ametis bus company is on the verge of privatisation, and the drivers are fighting against this, as well as disagreements over their contracts because of the night buses and – quelle surprise! – their pay! They’ve already agreed a pay rise but some bright soul decided they should go for those extra few percentage points. The drivers have demonstrated by basically refusing to drive, and stopping anyone else being used to replace them by obstructing the bus depot at the back of the train station. Since every bus line terminates or at least passes the gare on its route, this has been very effective in completely jamming up the bus system. Even the little free shuttle services round the town centre haven’t been able to run. This has gone on for three days but thankfully it has now come to an end, and everything’s running normally again.

That didn’t help Faith and I last night when we needed to get back from town after dinner with Ceri though. But I’ll start at the beginning; we knew there’d been bus problems so we got the bus to town earlier than we needed, on the basis that either a) we’d be allowing for the bus being delayed or b) we’d have time to walk. Anyway they were running on time (so we assumed things were back to normal and thought no more of it), got to town earlier than we needed and met Ceri after a quick cocktail to kill some time. We walked over to St. Leu, by the river, for some traditional french cuisine. I had beef bourguignon and it was the nicest I’ve ever eaten; so much flavour and the beef melted on the fork. We talked about how we’d been getting on, problems we’d had and things we wanted to bring up with UPJV and/or Keele. I had anticipated an awkward evening but it was actually very enjoyable – at least until we were waiting at the bus stop to head back to campus at 11.40 and no bus was forthcoming. In the end we had to get a taxi which cost about €10, but Ceri was very kind and gave us some money towards it.

I was so tired when I got back but I did manage to get up at 6.30am and made it to my Techniques d’analyses biochimiques lecture for the first time in three weeks! I don’t think I was missed, and the lecturer made no comment. The strike was still going on today but I got lucky with a bus to and from town on time. Somehow it’s worked out that I have almost no work to do until next Friday; I can prepare for the class dissertation I think I have on Tuesday, and I have some translation work to do for next Friday’s spanish class, but that’s it. Time to go explore another corner of Amiens this week I think!

Une Grève November 12, 2008

Today’s will be another bits and pieces post, there is no one major theme just a gathering of tidbits. I successfully got up at 6.30am this morning which I was quite proud of because it wasn’t even a scraping, it was a definite “right I’m getting up now”! However in a spectacular demonstration of sod’s law, my 8am chemistry lecture was cancelled. The lecturer did mention something about this week OR next week being cancelled, but there was nothing on the noticeboard to indicate which week. Anyway our TD (tutorial) lecturer confirmed that next week’s lecture will run, whilst the TD will not, so I’ll have two less hours of chemistry to plough through next wednesday morning! Anyway there I was in town at 8am with nothing to do for two hours until my TD, so I went and ran the errands I would have had to do after it instead. These included a bit of grocery shopping and recharging my bus pass with 31 days, because my 20 journeys bought before the holidays ran out today. I also got some more cash out from BNP Paribas (the only bank that doesn’t charge me fees for doing so).

While I was walking over towards the train station (and Ametis office to charge my bus card), I could hear a load of cars hanging on their horns. At first I just assumed it was another wedding; it seems to be custom after the wedding for the party to jump in their cars and do a tour of the town whilst beeping their horns. However it went on for a long time and was very loud, and didn’t appear to be moving away or closer. When I got to the crossing by the station I could see that down the road, both directions of 3-lane traffic were totally blocked by a wall of buses, two or three deep and across all the lanes. The noise was from all the bus drivers hanging on their horns! I just thought that the bus drivers were striking for some reason, but when I got into the Ametis office I overheard one of the staff on the phone explaining that the buses couldn’t get through because of a strike, implying they weren’t the cause of it. By the time I came out of the office the buses were six or seven deep on both sides, police were in attendance and I could see a group of thirty or so men in yellow jackets walking slowly up the road on the other side. I don’t know who they were or what they were striking about but their slow march up the three lane main road past the station had completely jammed up the traffic. I went and did my grocery shopping and by that time it had cleared a bit, but I could hear and just about see the police escort further up the road. The bus shelters all had posters up from Ametis to say that about 10 bus lines, including several school buses, would not be running that day because of strike demonstrations, so their routes were obviously too affected for them to even get round. It just goes to show how effective strikes are made to be in France – hundreds of people are affected, if only for 10 minutes, and nearly everyone in the area will know about it!

Le chat made another appearance today – and this time he was at the end of corridor so I was almost right about seeing him outside my door next. This time next week….

Jour Férié November 11, 2008

Today was one of the many “Jour Férié”, this one observes the Armistice, but in addition to the minute’s silences and services held today, the vast majority of shops, businesses, offices and all schools and colleges are also closed. Some places operate as if it were a sunday; for example the bus service is the same as a sunday. Some tourist attractions or places like the zoo even have longer opening times on Jours Fériés.

The schools, colleges and university were all closed today, but one of my lecturers offered last week to run this week’s class nonetheless, because it’s the last before our essay assessment. However I walked down to campus today and there was not a car in the car park, and the gates and doors were locked. It seems as if even if she was prepared to work today, no one else was! So I promptly turned around and went back to my room to find out if anyone was doing anything today, because I had no work to do and didn’t really fancy sitting around in my room all day, especially since the sun had come out.

As it happened, Joe, Katie and Alice were all planning on going skating today, which was the perfect solution to my day! We went for the afternoon session, which runs from 2-5pm but we only went for the last hour and a half. That was plenty – none of them skate very much and I’m horribly out of practice – I think it’s been nearly a year since I last skated. Despite that I quickly found my feet again and was managing some slow backwards skating and half decent turns by the end of the session. I will make this my weekly exercise session but somehow I have to squeeze my skates into the suitcase when I come back after Christmas, because as usual the hire skates are horrible!

Jardin des Délices November 10, 2008

It’s just about held off raining today but it has been very windy, even more so than over the weekend. It seems to be blowing itself out now so perhaps the next few days will be a bit nicer. At least it’s warmish – about 14˚C in comparison with the 4˚C it’s just about managing at Keele! I knew I wasn’t imagining that massive difference when I was there the other week. It’s been so windy here that the last few nights when I’ve been lying in bed in the dark listening to it squall outside my shutter I could almost imagine I’m back in a granite cottage on the north Cornish coast!

I haven’t really done much today, I just had that mid-term for Ancien Français which went quite well, I made one silly mistake that I know of simply because I couldn’t remember the rule even though I knew there was one, despite sitting there mulling it over for a good 15 minutes. I’m pretty sure I answered everything else correctly though, which wasn’t hard to be honest since there wasn’t much material to test; we only had to conjugate a few verbs in the present tense and decline some nouns, and explain the difference between the three declensions. I finally managed to get hold of the last signature on my change-of-module forms so they can go back to the International office tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent reading through some notes and an example commentary in preparation for my literature class tomorrow.

The main reason for this post is to correct the massive omission to last night’s post! I put it down to being preoccupied with posting pictures, the internet being slow and the fact it was getting late, but somehow I managed to forget to mention the amazing Salon de Thé that Joe, Alice and Katie introduced me to after we got back from the zoo. It’s called le Jardin des Délices and it’s just around the corner from the cathedral. They took me there so I could try the amazing chocolat chaud, which is close on melted chocolate; there’s a big vat of it being kept warm and moving behind the counter. That was pretty impressive, but this is a Salon de Thé after all, so their specialty is tea, and the ritual of serving it. They sell little cakes, pastries and snacks, but the main focus is on the drinks, with a tea and coffee menu; the food is an accompaniment to the drinks and not the reverse. The salon itself is cosy with the counter on one side and a cushioned bench and row of tables down the other, and some more seating outside under a canopy; there are less than 20 tables. The decor is rich in colour and texture, and the cups, saucers and plates all highly decorated and individual; no two people get the same set. They sell coffee and tea by the bag to take away as well as making it for you to drink there, and the making of it is transformed into an art; a welcome change from the abrupt “dumping powder in hot water, add milk, drink” act of most coffee shops. The menu details the ingredients of each blend or infusion, the recommended infusion time (for one particular tea it’s 15 minutes) and suitable nibbles to accompany it. Teas are mixed for you into a bag and served still brewing in the pot; sometimes a delicate china piece, sometimes a sturdy earthenware crock, but always presented neatly on a coaster next to your waiting cup and saucer. I can understand why these salons have kept their identity and their place in french culture when many other things have become homogenised and global; despite the piles of crocks behind the counter, the fact that every table was occupied and the space between each table amounted to 6 inches, there was no clattering and gurgling noise from behind the counter as drinks were made, the room wasn’t filled with the noisy chatter of the clients, in fact I barely even noticed the conversation of the people at the next door table. It was a warm, peaceful haven from the windy street outside, with everyone quietly enjoying their brew and snack in calm conversation on a sunday afternoon. Le Jardin des Délices has taken its place on my map of Amiens, and long may it live!