Nuit Blanche

Nuit Blanche: French for an ‘all nighter’. On Saturday (6th October) I went to the Nuit Blanche in Paris. Basically it’s art, or presentations and videos dotted all round Paris, in public buildings and areas. It goes on from 7pm til 7am (I think!) and there are literally millions of people wandering round the streets in the dead of night; it’s really an experience. Unfortunately since I’m a total wuss and can’t cope without a decent amount of sleep (!) we only stayed til 11, but we saw some pretty cool stuff. The best part was the Jardin des Tuileries; it was lined with 2000 terracotta flowerpots aflame. There were also some pretty cool convection tubes made of Iron with hot coals at the bottom – if you remember GCSE science, or you’re Kate with her cardboard carpet tubes, you’ll know what was going on – but what was even cooler was that the hot coals were in a movable basket so if you lowered it the fire went ‘out’ and if you then raised it again it fireballed at the top! (health and safety anyone?! – I was with Dana, Bonnie, Mark and Lisa who are all American and they were saying that in the US you wouldn’t be allowed in the gardens, let alone 4 feet from the fire! Go French lax safety regs!) They also had: floating firepots on the lake, great balls of firepots and a huge chandelier of (you guessed it!) firepots hanging over the end, by the huge, lit up Ferris wheel. It was pretty cool – and I’ve never seen the Jardins so packed.

Thing is, Dana and I weren’t going to even go! But Lisa persuaded us that it was pretty much a once in a lifetime experience and we should. I suppose we should have stayed all night, but my mental state after that would have been…interesting!

On Saturday morning Dana and I did the markets in Chartres – they’re really amazing. There’s a flower market (for you Freddie :P), a fresh produce market (with literally everything: cheese, fruit, veg, sea food, dairy, Chinese, roasting chickens, whole (literally – fur/feathers, head etc) hares, pigeons, rabbits and pheasant) and a clothes market. I live in a really cool city! After that we took a look at the old town. It’s really beautiful down by the river. And an absolutely gorgeous day to do it too :) We also chose to play in a 4-8 and 9-12 years olds playpark…^^

What else have I been up to? Well, there was the orientation in Orléans. Which was boring. It was nice to see the other assistants – even one from Manchester! - and socialise, but all they told us had been in various information packs over the summer! The one on Thursday which was for the Eure-et-Loir Primary assistants was much more useful.

I was in my schools on Wednesday (one lesson in each) we did the CE2 in my main school (8-9 year olds, literally just beginning English) and the CM1 in the other school (9-10 and had a year already). It was a lot of fun – singing and being generally silly, but it was great teaching. I just need to become more confident and use my initiative a little more. I guess that’s the problem with being with another person in the class – I relay on them too much! But I think by Christmas I should be fairly ok.

Still haven’t got internet sorted; I’m going to be sharing wireless with Bonnie who lives pretty much next door – so we have to sort ourselves out first…and then hopefully understand what’s going on…or get Lisa (who’s renewed her assistantship this year, so knows what she’s doing!) to help us.

Starting to miss people quite a lot now :(

Much love and huggles

Nielle x