A fortnight-long half term, you say? Part I

Hello again, blog. And hello again readers, if you're still there. Sorry for the recent lack of posts, I've been bereft of my (Dad's) computer for the holidays but, as you'll see, it was all worth it.

First stop, Nice! We went on another brilliant Erasmus trip from Lyon and after 6 hours on the road we arrived in a slightly rainy paradise.

We also saw the famous Nice Carnival; the Bataille des Fleurs during the day and a parade in the evening. The theme was 'The King of the Five Continents', hence the international flavour to the floats.

We ventured to Monaco for a night out and the last day. The sun (sort of) shone on our morning in Monte Carlo as we visited the royal castle and the enormous marina.

When I'm a 'grown-up' I'll live here.

...that's after I win the lottery, of course.

Our Cultural Weekend in Lyon

 One very hungover Saturday myself and my flatmate decided to venture into our local town for an evening of culture, which meant actually getting a place to stay, rather than our usual stalwart of waiting for the first Sunday morning train... On arrival we made our way to Cool&Beds hostel, a great, cheap and clean place I've stayed at before, north of Vieux Lyon right on the bank of the Saône. Unfortunately they had no spaces left (!) so slightly disgruntled at our unnecessary detour, we turned back south and tried the Auberge on the top of the hill (halfway between Cathédrale St Jean and Fourvière) joking that if they had no spaces here we'd have to roll back down. Luckily for us they did, at only €19-something each for a place in a 8-bed dorm. I had to pay €7 extra to sign up for a hostel membership card thing, but I'm hoping this will come in handy again!

View from the hostel. Forgive the phonecam quality!

Spotted on the walk

After claiming our room and leaving our overnight bags we headed to Place Bellecour for the tourist information office to find out what plays were on that evening. There was a huge choice but we settled on 'Georges Dandin' by Molière in Acte 2 theatre. We weren't quite sure where to find it, so phoned up in advance, only to be led back to the same address we had visited on our first, unsuccessful hostel search! It's a small Lyon. 

It was a cute little attic theatre with one stage and maybe 100 seats (? - I'm terrible at estimates) all at one level and a pop-up bar with all drinks at €2! Such a shame we were so hungover... The play itself was very good: for us, mainly an exercise in language comprehension but we followed almost everything, even the humour which, despite the play being of Shakespearean era, was brilliantly intact. The ending felt a little abrupt, but who am I to question the plot-workings of a genius? 

From here we went to The Wallace, a great Scottish pub (most pub-like 'pub' I've seen out of Britain!) towards Vieux Lyon. They serve fish and chips, and about a million different type of whiskey; I'll definitely be returning another time when I'm more hungry and in the mood for a drink!

In the morning the hostel needed us out by 10am so after a generous breakfast we headed back out into town. With nothing much else to do (the whole of France is like a ghost-town on Sundays) we went to see 'Django Unchained' in the original version - meaning subtitled, not dubbed (hallelujah!) - in Pathé Bellecour. It was admittedly a little early in the morning for all that violence, but it's a fantastic film: typically Tarantino, but not in a predictable way.

Afterwards we grabbed lunch in Quick (like a continental McDonalds - almost the only place open on Sundays) then headed to the Gadagne museum in Vieux Lyon, for me a revisit of their great Guignol collection. Finally, back to Bourg for a well-needed early night!

I can't remember if I've already shared this
puppet on this blog. But it's cute so I don't care.

Surfing in January?

Having always been told that the French for snowboarding is snowboarding, it would seem that all the cool kids (and fellow teachers, bemused shop assistants etc.) now use surf.

So for the first weekend of term I went surfing in the Alps. (Kind of.) Being friends with the assistants in the school across the road I managed to invite myself to their Amicale's ski weekend in Les Contamines Montjoie. The Amicale is basically an group in each school which organised social evenings and weekends for the teachers. For skiing this worked out brilliantly, as transport was in the form of car-share and the kind people who drove us wouldn't hear about petrol reimbursement. We got a huge group discount on ski-passes, accommodation and food, so the whole weekend cost under €50.

The weekend's activities included snowboarding, a picturesque sunny/snowy walk, drinking, night-time tobogganing and tonnes of cheese.

The next weekend all of the girls went on my school's equivalent of the same trip, in Les Plans d'Hotonnes. A teacher said they could lend me ski equipment in my size for free, so I decided to ski, for the first time in four years. After a shaky first button lift, it turned out - like everyone said - to be just like riding a bike.

Courtesy of my very talented (and pretty)  friends Andrea and Karolina

Much more fun than my thoroughly intermediate 'red-slope' skiing was teaching my friends some of whom had barely seen snow before, never mind snow-sports. All in all, plenty of laughter, falling over and recovery vin chaud gave us a second successful weekend. The only question is: when next?

L'Esprit de l'Escalier

avoir l'esprit de l'escalier: to think of a great response after the moment has passed.

This great expression doesn't really have a direct translation into English, but we all know too well the frustration of winning an argument in your mind after everyone's gone home. Somewhat ironically (or fittingly?), this happens to me a lot more in French than English, usually from taking a few seconds too long to understand or find a piece of vocabulary. Most embarrassing is when you're passing someone in the corridor: in the few seconds you have to exchange pleasantries I tend to come out with something a bit awkward, even in English:

But in French this all becomes ten times worse when you realise seconds too late that the person you just spoke to in fact said 'bonne année' (happy new year), rendering my hurried reply of 'oui, merci' (yes, thanks) entirely inappropriate and just a little odd. 

More frustrating are the moments when words as simple as Tuesday seem to have fled the mind, in favour of my inner idiot dancing around and shouting 'Ooh! Ooh! Pick me! It's Jeudi!' (which definitely means Thursday). I'm sure these things are part and parcel of starting back at school after two weeks in the UK, but I'm also sure they'll never entirely go away, which is possibly the most frustrating part of language learning.

Afterthought: Speaking of my two weeks in the UK, they were lovely (thank you for asking), and filled with mince pies, Terry's chocolate oranges, friends, family and all kinds of homely, Christmassy wonderfulness. That said, other than the usual 'back to work' blues, I'm not entirely put out at being back. Ever the optimist, I'm looking forward to the Winter term, which I'm sure you'll hear all about in due course. 

Alsace at Christmas

I'm a little late writing this post as the last week before leaving has been a little hectic (!) with extra working hours, 'Christmas' meals and very last-minute packing.

We rearranged Friday's lessons to leave Lyon at 5pm. After a few hours' delay, down snowy roads impassable by coach, we arrived in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines at some ungodly hour in the morning. Through the dark, rain and sleep-deprivation we didn't quite get to appreciate our location, but waiting for us in the morning was a kind of Winter Wonderland:

After a deservedly lazy morning we made our way to Strasbourg, but with only 1½ hours to spend there we sped around the city taking in the main sights: a typical Alsatian meal, the Cathedral, 'la Petite France', and the Christmas market:

 

Later in the evening we went to Obernai, a small historical town with a traditional, artisan market. The evening light wasn't great for photos, but the place was fabulously festive, with tiny, winding streets, old-fashioned houses and a really authentic market.

After a long day we were treated to a traditional 'raclette' dinner: four different types of melted raclette cheese (including 'white wine' and 'smoked' varities), dried cured meats, potatoes, bread and lettuce.

In the morning we went to Colmar, a town taken over by six separate Christmas markets spread across the streets. This wasn't all Colmar had to offer, though. It was a lovely small town with a 'petite Venise' rather like the 'petite France' of Strasbourg, but on a canal.

Far too soon we returned to Lyon, to arrive before the last metro. Unfortunately, by this hour, our train back to Bourg en Bresse had long gone so we had to stay in Lyon for the night in an unusually clean hostel. I'd easily recommend Cool&Beds to anyone looking to stay in Lyon - three of us stayed in a private room for four, which worked out cheaper than the dorms at €20 each.

In spite of the delays, all thanks goes to Erasmus-Lyon for a festive weekend, and for taking us to places we'd never have thought to visit ourselves.

Fête des Lumières

The Fête des Lumières in Lyon is a unique festival of light, celebrating an old myth that the Virgin Mary once saved the town from the plague, and giving thanks. Starting as a tradition of leaving candles on the windowsill, the festival has become a massive international event, attracting millions of people from around the world to see the the city lit up for one weekend only. The installations vary from light sculptures to animations projected on the city's most famous and beautiful buildings. Crêpe and mulled-wine stands line the streets and as the attractions span the whole city, the crowds aren't unbearable (although the Saturday night queue for Place des Terreaux isn't exactly for the claustrophobic.) The métro is made free for one night (and one night only), but surprisingly this doesn't even bring it to the crowd levels of an average morning on the Tube. Highlights included, well, 'Highlights' the short film projected on the buildings around the Place des Terreaux, the Cathédrale Saint-Jean illuminated with crawling gargoyles and stained glass patterns, the last few minutes we caught of Tallis' Spem in Alium performed in the Hôtel de Région in the Confluence and fireworks on the banks of the Rhône.

After all this culture, the two of us who were stuck out in Lyon for the night headed out. We found a lovely restaurant in Vieux-Lyon (cannot remember its name for the life of me) which stayed open until half past midnight for the festival day and served us a fantastic, typically French, three course meal complete with a complementary glass of white wine with cranberry (surprisingly good!) - I had onion soup followed by a Bavette steak with dauphinoise potatoes and a raspberry cake to finish, and all for €20, I seem to recall.

Afterwards we set off for the over-crowded, but brilliantly mock-English, Smoking Dog and the ever-reliable James Joyce, both in Vieux-Lyon. Next, with no idea where to pass the time until the first train at 7.15am, we stumbled across Boston Café on Place des Terreaux (considerable quieter at 3am after the illuminations had finished) while searching for a different bar. A great little pub/club/bar hybrid, it caters to all tastes with decent music (in my opinion, having been in France maybe a little too long...) bearable drinks prices (again, considering it's France) a young, cool clientèle (only one person tried to grope me, which might be a record in this country) and a dress code (!) so no more creeps in trackies. Maybe it was the relief of finding somewhere that would take us for the night (shut at 5.30, managed to linger until 6, chatted outside until 6.30, actually ended up running for the train!) but I think I really like this place.

Overall, staying out for the whole festival was an unprecedented and unexpected success - but even so, next time I want to spend an evening away think I'll get in early and book myself a hotel room!

Bourg, je t'aime

We might complain about being stuck in a smallish town, but I imagine when I move back to Exeter I'll miss a few things about this year in Bourg en Bresse:

• The salary - Not sure how I'll fare going back to life as an impoverished student surviving once again off my parents' generosity.

• The view - Living on the top floor has its perks (almost worth the ridiculous stairs).

Taken from our kitchen today. Which brings me onto my next point...

• The weather - Usually only marginally better than home during the Winter but that makes all the difference. 

• The food - Just incredible (if you know what to avoid...).

• Free time being free time - This sounds paradoxical, but in university a good proportion of my time outside of lectures is spent either reading and writing essays, or feeling guilty for not doing so. Admittedly a few hours a week of preparation are needed for the assistant job, but recycling lessons is perfectly acceptable - even encouraged - in the name of giving every student an equal education... Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and all that.

• Breaking out of the bubble - Students in Exeter tend to avoid locals, wrapping ourselves in a somewhat claustrophobic net of BNOCs, recognising people wherever you go, being limited to student haunts ("I've never seen this street before...") and knowing everything about everyone in your society/halls, even if you don't know their name. It's actually quite refreshing to meet people of all ages and ways of life, and not to feel like there's only 'one' place to be at any particular time. ("You went to Arena on a Friday?!"; "You've never been to Varsity/Ottery/Cellar Door?!")

• The people - For perhaps the first time in my life I have one solid friendship group, and they're amazing. I've always enjoyed flitting between friends in different groups, but I can only imagine that whatever living situation I end up in next year amongst my various and scattered friends doing a fourth year (probably looking more like a studio for one...) won't live up to this.