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.

Brussels : City of a Thousand Languages April 12, 2009

The Mannekin-Pis, an icon of Brussels

Sonia and I were granted our wish for great weather this weekend; after leaving Amiens in a dull and unpromising grey morning, we arrived in Brussels just before midday to wonderful sunshine and a warm city. It took us a while to find our hotel because the map I had printed from google was wrong. Fortunately Sonia had also written down directions and hers were different, so we tried those and found it! For the price (€30 each for a twin room, 1 night) the hotel St. Anne was amazing; it seemed to be brand new, everything gleaming in a white, minimalist and modern-art style. Breakfast was a generous buffet, included in the price and featuring bacon and eggs as well as the usual continental fare! It was just a short walk from a raft of restaurants, bars, shops and the main old centre of town, so ideally placed for us.

After we had checked in and relaxed for 5 minutes, we headed out to start exploring, deciding to go to the furthest point out and work our way back. So with street map in hand we navigated uphill through the Sablon/Marolles area, to the Palais de Justice and viewing point at Place Poleart for views over the city. On the way back down we wandered through the narrow streets of the old quarter, peering at the old antique shops, and the amazing number of fancy window displays in the chocolate shops, until we reached the bottom and the teeming corner where the Mannekin-Pis stands. This tiny statue/fountain stands barely a foot tall and is constantly surrounded by a melee of tourists having their picture taken with it! Just a short walk into the centre of this area brings you to the Grand Place, surrounded by the magnificent buildings of the Town Hall, King’s House and ornate Guild Houses.

Something we did as we were walking round the town was try to find various comic-strip murals that have been put up as part of the 2009 celebrations of the comic strip. I bought a guidebook including map from the Comic Strip House and in the end we managed to see about half of the murals. Some were too far out of our way to walk to, but most are clustered in the centre of town so it was those that we saw. In keeping our eyes out for them we also came across many other pieces of street art or sculpture, all unusual or of much higher quality than your average graffiti! My favourites out of these were some graffiti sketches of pigs, which now adorn my computer desktop! To round off the afternoon, we decided to go back up the hill to wander through the large Parc de Bruxelles, between the old Palais Royal and the Parliament building; but since our feet were aching we got the metro this time! It was lovely in the early evening sunshine, and the park was full of families and couples who had obviously been enjoying some of the first nice weather of the year.

We chilled at the hotel for an hour or so until it was about time for dinner, and in the process of searching for a good looking place we experienced the multiculturality of Brussels come to life! Anyone who has been in the narrow streets of the St. Germain area of Paris in the evening would recognise the scene; tiny cobbled streets lined with restaurants on both sides, all with tables and menus outside until there is barely room to walk between them, and all with maitre d’s touting for your business, trying to persuade you that theirs is the finest menu or the cheapest price. And also as you find in Paris, the different world cuisines tend to gravitate towards each other; so you have little Italy, Greek street and Chinatown, the German style, French style and the list goes on. In the event, Sonia and I battled our way through all of these to emerge in Place Agora Plein; a blissfully quiet oasis after the noisy, crowded streets we’d just escaped. We picked a small, simple place who didn’t hassle us and had an equally non-fussy dinner of steak-frites. Sonia got her long-awaited bottle of Kriek cherry beer, which I tried and liked, and I chose another beer which turned out to be a success; Lindemann’s Framboise (raspberry) beer. After dinner we went to find Delirium Café, a famous bar which has over 2000 beers on offer. The bar itself was incredible, never mind the beers they serve; it was covered in beer signs, trays, mats, mugs, bottles; all stuck to the ceiling and walls or indeed cemented into them. It was packed and playing lively rock music; the pictures don’t do it justice and in retrospect I should have taken some film! We only stayed just long enough for another beer and to take in the atmosphere, since we didn’t want to be up too late with a full day to take in more of the city in the morning.

We did manage to get up early, had a good breakfast and then checked out, leaving our bags to collect later. First on the agenda was to head back up to Sablon to explore the market that happens on weekends. I had hoped there would be a good book market there but as it was the stalls were mostly brick-a-brack, pictures, jewellery and antiques. Never mind, I still came away with 5 early-1900’s postcards and two pieces of jewellery, so I considered it a success even if there were no books to be had! Again we wandered back down to Grand Place through the myriad streets, admiring the architecture to be found on every corner. And then a treat; the Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate! No sooner have you bought your ticket and they give you a tasting; this is my kind of museum! There were displays of everything from the horticulture of the cocoa plant, to processing, manufacture, historical methods, medicinal traditions, chemical properties and even chocolate fashion! There was also a small kitchen where a very friendly lady showed us how individual chocolates are made; from the solid 5kg block of chocolate that is melted, how to know when it is the right consistency; filling the moulds and allowing the excess to run out to leave the shells, and finally once it’s solidified, how to make it into a praline. And yes, we got more tastings! After this it was about time for lunch, but we only grabbed a quick light salad because both Sonia and I were craving chocolate, and more specifically the traditional and famous Belgian waffle! We bought our chocolates for later, but the waffles were for now; I opted for strawberry and chantilly cream whereas Sonia added chocolate sauce too. For the rest of the afternoon we browsed the shops and found some more comic strip murals, but all too soon it was time to fetch our bags from the hotel and metro back to Gare du Midi to catch our TGV back to Lille.

It is a strange experience crossing a border by train; no one checked our passports and it didn’t really feel like we had gone to another country! Part of this I’m sure is to do with the fact that Belgium is also largely French speaking, although of course Dutch and German are equally used. Another factor is that even in Lille, just within the French border and an international hub with trains running between Belgium, France and the UK, the three languages begin to appear on signs, so already the cultures are being mixed and you begin to feel like you’re in an international place rather than one particular country. I titled this post “Brussels: City of thousand languages” because I swear I heard every language known to man and more besides in two days there. Apart from the three “biggies”; French, English and Dutch, there were also German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, Greek, Chinese and many other Arabic and Asian languages I couldn’t begin to identify. Evidence of cultural migration was everywhere; in shops, restaurants, services and just in the people walking down the street. It really is a completely international city, and somewhere I would definitely consider spending some time in if ever I needed to improve a particular language. I would say French and English were the two languages I heard most; and even though I spoke to people in French I was often answered in English, at least after a couple of sentences. This irritated me a bit because I don’t think I sound obviously English when I’m speaking French now; indeed I was always either asked “do you speak English?” or the person in question had heard me speaking English to Sonia before the language was switched. I can understand that, just as I try to always improve my French, the people I was speaking to may have been trying to improve their English, but I can’t help feeling that it was the “default-to-English” syndrome again and assumption about my level of French. One incident has stuck in my mind and that was when I was buying my waffle; there were no prices listed so when I got mine I had to wait until the vendor told me how much, which she did whilst turning away into the kitchen so I only caught 4… and not what came after. So I got four euros out and gave that to her, so she repeated how much more was needed. I heard “five”, in English (she’d heard me speaking to Sonia), so I gave her 5 cents, she shook her head and repeated herself; this time I heard what sounded like “five teen”, very badly pronounced, so I queried her; “fifteen? quinze?” in English then French, and she shook her head again, finally giving up on English and told me “cinquante”; fifty. At last! If she had just stuck to French, we would have understood each other perfectly and she could have moved on to the next customer already. The default to English syndrome really annoys me sometimes, especially in cases like this. I realise that for people who can’t speak French (or any other language) well, it is necessary, and I’m sure that I will need it in Dresden later this year; since I don’t speak a word of German. But when you have started speaking to someone in perfectly good French (or any other language) and it’s just a simple transaction why on earth must you switch to English!!

Anyway here are the photo albums: Brussels 1, Brussels 2, Comic strips, statues & other street art

Lazy weekend March 29, 2009

I have taken it easy this weekend, as the title suggests. Slept in yesterday and this morning, and haven’t done too much work. I finished my essay on The Tempest on Friday, so ran over a final draft and then emailed that and the other piece of work I did to my lecturer. Also emailed my answers to some set questions for Sociolinguistique to that lecturer. With Easter looming I am beginning to plan alternative forms of assessment with my lecturers so that in the event of there not being any exams I can take, I have something to show Keele for this semester! In other modules where I cannot contact the lecturer via email (because they don’t use it) and I can’t physically get into the buildings to find them in their office, there’s nothing I can do so I feel I should do as much as I can where it’s otherwise possible. To that end, the other piece of work I made a start on today is my presentation for Spanish on the subject of the Basque country. Normally this would be brief notes because the presentation is meant to be given orally, accompanied by a handout with diagrams or pictures. Because it looks unlikely I’ll get to give this presentation, I am writing it and formatting it as if it were a written presentation so even if it never gets marked by a lecturer here, I can show Keele that I was doing something. After I’ve finished that I’ll be done with the work for classes, but there’s plenty else I can do – learning Russian and practicing some free translation between French, English and Spanish are all on my list to do.

Something else I got done this weekend was finalising the trip to Brussels that’s been in the pipeline over the last few weeks. To begin with I mooted the idea of four days in Brussels, then it got switched to Bruges, then reduced to two days and moved back to Brussels, and now finally we have settled on that – the train tickets are booked now so there’s no going back! I met Sonia yesterday in a hidden-away Salon de Thé called Alice-Anne which has Wifi access for the price of a drink; useful to know in case of a future internet emergency. We are going early in the morning on Friday 10th April and returning in the evening on Saturday. “We” is me, Sonia and her friend Allie, whose family friends we are hopefully staying with. They live just outside the city apparently, and have kindly agreed to let us stay with them! The train journey is in two parts; from Amiens to Lille-Flandres on a regular intercity train and then from Lille-Europe to Bruxelles-Midi on a TGV. The stations of Lille-Flandres and Lille-Europe are only a short walking distance apart; Lille-Europe is the international station through which TGV and Thalys trains pass to Belgium and also Eurostar between Paris and London. The reason we decided on Brussels rather than Bruges is because of the train journey; with the one we’ve chosen we are always travelling north, whereas to get to Bruges made less sense, since it involved getting 3 trains; intercity south to Paris-Nord, Thalys north to Bruxelles-Midi (not via Lille) and then Belgian intercity to Bruges. So since we’d be travelling through Brussels anyway we thought we may as well just go there. I have yet to do my super-internet-research-whistlestop-tour planning but never fear I will have a manic list for our two-day stop!

Tomorrow brings another AG, another vote on the blocages – so until then I don’t really know what to expect for the week ahead. I want to say that blocages will continue, but following Thursday’s negative AG I’m not so sure as I would have been a week ago. Anyway it doesn’t really matter, because the promised sunshine is back and I have plenty of other things to fill the next few weeks, so time will pass quickly even if I don’t have lectures. I hope the presidence gives an answer on what they’re going to do about exam scheduling soon, so I (hopefully) have some ammunition with which to email Keele and justify me leaving in a month instead of two.

Another week, another vote March 26, 2009

First of all I’ll tell you what happened at today’s AG; there were less people than on Monday, and the tone was altogether different. The debate went on and on with people speaking for and against the blocages, rather than about the positives and negatives of the reforms that they are fighting in the first place. It was like everyone’s got tunnel vision on the radicalisation of the movement and why that should continue, and they’ve forgotten about the reasons why they’re on strike. Nothing more was said about the “semestre blanc” possibility, except a tantalising half-comment about “exams in september”. At the moment I’m waiting for a follow-up email from the presidence on what their schedule is for catching up, but until then things seem muddier than ever – I can’t get straight answers from the few lecturers I’m in touch with via email, and the blocage vote seems to be weakening. At least, at today’s AG the margin between for and against was much narrower than Monday’s, and although for won it (meaning blocages will continue until the next vote on Monday), it looks like it is becoming increasingly unpopular, although why this could be when on Monday it was wholeheartedly supported I don’t know. Anyway I have two short video clips; the first one shows the size of the auditorium and the number of people there, the second is the moment when the blocage was voted through. The reaction was much much quieter than Monday’s, I might add.

Anyway, in other news…. Well not much really, which is to be expected. I have read The Tempest this week and am currently writing a mini-essay on it for one of my literature modules. This is part of the work options that some lecturers have  been sending us via email; now many people are thinking about what alternative forms assessment could take in order to validate the semester. Over the weekend I need to write my Spanish presentation on the basis that theoretically there may be class time in which I can present it; if the AG on Monday votes to end the blocages then according to the schedule I could present it when it was originally planned for on Thursday. However because we’ve missed so many weeks I don’t know if she will want to do the people who’ve already missed theirs first, or leave them til the end. I briefly went skating yesterday but it was crap, too many kids messing about so I gave up after a short time and I’ll try again tomorrow. This is one advantage of having no lectures – I can do whatever, whenever instead of planning it round lecture time. On Saturday I’m meeting up with Sonia so we can organise our weekend trip to Belgium in a couple of weeks’ time, so I should have some more details about that by next week. Hopefully the weather will be a bit better next week as well; after our long spell of sunshine this past week has seen a return to grey, dreary drizzle and lower temperatures. Only reasonable to expect variation from springtime, but I do like my sunshine!

Mooching along March 15, 2009

Really not much to report but I thought I ought to write a little something since the last I posted was on Tuesday. The weather has been dull and grey most of this week but next week my forecaster is showing all bright suns and temperature between 10 and 15 C, so should be a nice week! Nothing unusual has happened recently; it’s all been business as usual with lectures and work. I’ve targeted the reading this week to try and get that finished and I’ve succeeded in so much as I’ve now finished all three texts for Littérature Comparée; Horace’s Odes, Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal. Having already read two of the plays for Littérature Française I just have Le Roi se meurt left, which I should get done this week coming. I also had some lecture notes for Littérature Française to read, some questions to type up for Sociolinguistique and a mini-essay for Littérature Comparée, which I chose to write on Odes. So it has been quite a literature-orientated week. On Friday however I have Spanish translation mid-term exam so this week will be more Spanish-orientated, especially since the grammar mid-term is the following week and then my oral presentation the week after. I need to find out when the next strike AG is; it might be tomorrow but I want to go to see if I can get a heads up on the outcome of these next couple of crucial weeks. There are more demonstrations this week, once again on Thursday. I don’t know why they always pick Thursday and I hope it doesn’t disrupt continuing lectures this week. I now haven’t had a Spanish oral class for three weeks – it might even be four I can’t remember! Granted this isn’t all due to the strike; one week it was the holiday, the next it was “dead university day” and last week the lecturer was absent, but it’s still not good. I only have two more classes until I’m supposed to give my presentation. Anyway we shall see. The next few weeks should go quickly I think because I have an assessment each week; that always helps to make time disappear! I am also tentatively planning a weekend trip to Belgium for the double jour férié weekend of 10th April, so watch this space…

Breaking into summer March 6, 2009

I am most impressed with the weather the last few days! Blue sky and sunshine, only a few brief patches of grey and no rain. It’s been warm enough to have my window open in the afternoons, although in the mornings it can still take a while for the cool night temperatures to warm up. Definitely looking brighter than the past few months though and it’s a welcome sight! Could this be the herald of a great summer? I certainly hope at least that the worst of the weather is over with. Rain I would expect in March and April but snow and ice I hope not to see again until next year!

The internet was down from Wednesday evening until about Thursday lunchtime, which was a bit frustrating because normally I would have lectures to fill the morning, but since Thursday was the “dead university” day I didn’t. I didn’t even bother walking down to campus although I believe all the buildings were locked and chained as they usually are on weekends or holidays. Instead I did laundry and took the opportunity to deep clean my room; including all those parts which don’t need so frequent cleaning (like my window), or that I usually ignore (in ‘I’ll do it next time’ syndrome), and beating out my rug. After a couple of hours I tried the internet again and discovered that it worked without having to go through the authentication stage (which is the part that hadn’t been working) so for a while I thought they might just have done away with it. But no, after a couple of hours I clicked to a new page and got the authentication page instead, so it was back. I was quite pleased with myself this morning when I managed to get up and out to my 8am lecture at the science fac (the only one I have this semester) – I felt a bit bad because I haven’t been for three weeks; last week being the holiday and I overslept the week before.

Tomorrow I’m going to do a bit of shopping in town; I’ve built up a bit of a list of things to do so that coupled with a lazy-ish morning should kill most of the day. Sunday I might go skating but probably will stay in and do some work and other random things. I’m not sure that many of the Cardiff guys are back yet; as far as I know most or all of their lectures are on strike still so they’ve probably taken the opportunity to stay in the UK for longer. If anyone’s around I might see what’s on at the cinema. Apart from that I intend to have a fairly chillaxed weeked.

Back in France Again February 28, 2009

Well I’m back again, and although I enjoyed my week at home it absolutely sped by and I couldn’t believe it was time to leave again this morning. My flight over to Exeter last Friday didn’t go completely according to plan; although there were no hitches getting to the airport and the plane took off on time, about halfway through the flight the captain came on and told us they’d had a weather update from Exeter which informed them of some low-lying fog which might prevent us from landing there. He said they’d review the situation when we arrived but that we may have to land at Bristol instead. When we got to Exeter and started the descent, it was clear it was taking much longer than usual. About 20mins after we should have landed we got an update to say that we were just hanging around a bit longer to see if it cleared, as the fog was a bit patchy, but that a decision would be made soon. After a further 15 minutes of circling (I later found out we were stacked with 3 other flights), with visibility less than half the required distance and not improving, they made the decision to divert – but we went to Southampton instead of Bristol, along with two of the other flights. The fourth went to Birmingham. We landed at Southampton at about 10pm, and were told that onward transport would be arranged to take us to Exeter. The first coach that turned up was quickly filled with families with young children who were given priority, and it looked like it would be a while before any more coaches would arrive.  At about 11.30 I managed to get in a taxi that was drafted with a family of 3 who had flown from Aberdeen. We arrived back at Exeter (which was very foggy, along with most of the surrounding area) at about 1.30, where mum had waited for me. We finally got back home to Truro just before 3am, about four hours later that it would have been if we’d landed as scheduled at Exeter. Not an experience I would care to repeat, but it could have been worse!

I didn’t do much on my week at home; I did some gardening, got my hair cut, did a bit of shopping particularly for books and helped mum out at work a bit. On Thursday I went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic (good funny girly flick) with Emma and then we went for Pizza Express after, where after much deliberation and a bit of flirting she finally plucked up the courage to give our very fit waiter her number! I look forward to hearing the outcome of that… I managed to get some of my food fixes; Pizza Express was one of them and I also had a pasty, fish and chips and an Indian takeaway, although we never did get Chinese in the end. I feel like I’ve eated so much but really it wasn’t, it’s just that my eating habits are very different while I’m here in France so when I go home and back to normal meals it suddenly seems enormous! Much appreciated though, I do like good food.

The trip back today went without any problems really; my train from Paris Nord was delayed by about half an hour but not enough to make much of a difference. I have already booked my flights for the Easter holidays because they’ll only get more expensive if I leave it, and with the small aircraft they use on that route there would be a small risk of the flight I want getting fully booked. I have no plans to go anywhere until then at the moment, so I’m looking at the longest stretch of time I’ll have been here since before Christmas; 7 weeks. It doesn’t seem like that long but I have a horrible feeling it will drag because I’ve got used to only being here for a short period before going home, and because for the time being the strike continues so I have more free time than originally timetabled. Mum says she might grab a weekend over here to make up for the one she missed before Christmas, which would be great, but I’ll believe it when the flights are booked! If I get really bored I might see about organising a weekend trip somewhere. The one-day demonstrations and continuous strike still continue, despite the fact that the government has now assured the unions that no positions will be laid off in 2010 or 2011, just in 2009, and that the whole reform is going to be completely rewritten. The unions still aren’t happy though and want all plans for reform to be scrapped entirely and for any future reforms to be open for full discussion before they are drafted and announced – basically so they could kill the idea before it took root in future, instead of having to fight it as they are now. The government is clearly moving backwards though so perhaps this strike will end before the semester does.

One last little thing; I got thinking about the blog this last week and how I would like to continue a “daily life” blog after this year has ended. However, I clearly can’t continue it on here since this was set up specifically for this year and it wouldn’t make much sense to write about other stuff on a blog called “A Year in Amiens”! To that end, I have created a second blog, called “Life in Cornwall” (there is now a link on the right hand column), but it won’t just be about life in Cornwall, but also life at uni and travelling elsewhere. I expect I won’t post too frequently on it for the time being since this one is the current focus, but while I’m home in the holidays I probably will.

Skating up a storm February 10, 2009

It’s been a slow start to the week again what with no lectures yesterday and only one this morning, but I’ve got some work out of the way. Even though half my lectures are cancelled there is plenty of reading material; at the moment I’m working through the Spleen et Idéal section of Baudelaire’s les Fleurs du Mal, and there are of course handouts to read that have been left by the lecturers on strike. There was a demonstration in Paris today for this education sector strike, with some discrepancy between the numbers of attendees; some say 50,000; the police say 17,000 – a large movement either way. Yesterday evening the Education Minister Valérie Pécresse announced that the proposed legislation would be “reworked” in light of the unrest it has caused, but reiterated that reforms would still be made in September 2009, at the beginning of the next academic year. The teachers still aren’t happy with that though, and see the government’s back-pedalling as evidence that they can win their case and have the whole thing thrown out, so it isn’t going to stop the strike just yet.

Along with parts of the UK, most of the north-west of France has been hit by a big Atlantic storm over the last 24hrs. The wind and rain built up all through Monday until it was really howling; last night and this morning there was rubbish and debris blowing everywhere and the wind snatched the

Vendée Globe pavilion damage

breath right out of my nose! It had mostly blown out by lunchtime though and with the exception of a few sudden downpours this afternoon, it is now eerily quiet; the calm after the storm! The Vendée Globe headquarters, on the coast at les Sables d’Olonne, was badly hit with their main pavilion and some equipment being damaged and wind speeds of up to 140km/h were recorded.

I did brave the weather today to go skating again, and I’m glad I did. As expected, it was much quieter than at the weekend, and to add to that it was on the big rink (the same one as in the pictures from the hockey match) rather than the smaller one which I’ve been on previously. To begin with however this didn’t seem like much of an advantage, because we were coned into 1/4 of the rink while the rest was taken up with kid’s hockey training. There were about 10-15 of us skating round in this little patch of ice and I was less than impressed, but then after about 45mins the kiddies packed up, they took away the cones and we had the whole rink. Ahhhhh the space! It was brilliant, suddenly it seemed like there were about 4 of us on the rink, not the same number as before. I worked hard on that rink; apart from working on circles, switching from forward to backward and general blade control, I spent 15 mins just skating round, concentrating on maintaining a good upright posture and strengthening core muscles. And I felt it; towards the end and afterwards my core muscles and thighs were aching splendidly, but this is good because it shows I’ve worked at something.

To cap off this post, I am happy to report that the accommodation staff have come to their senses and finally the kitchen is accessible with just our swipe cards, and we no longer have to faff with going down to reception to exchange a key for our student card. I don’t know what’s prompted the change – probably they just got sick of constantly exchanging and keeping track of the key – but I found out when I went down to get the key last night and was told “new system – the kitchens are open”. Whatever the reason, I’m glad as it should make things much simpler. I have touched base back at Keele this week with my accommodation application for 2009/10 being sent off; after finding out last week that they would email us forms (because obviously we can’t be at Keele to come in person as would normally be the case), we finally got them through today – and they want them back by tomorrow! Good job my internet is working at the moment eh?! Honestly sometimes I wonder if these people engage brain at all sometimes. Natalie – another Keele French student who is one of the group I’ll be living with next year – sent them an email last week to ask about our application, and the reply she got was “please come to the Darwin building to discuss this with a member of staff”. Err….didn’t really grasp the context of the email there did they?! Anyway despite some rather worrying moments like that everything seems to be sorted in that department and we should have a nice little flat for our final year.