Back again

Back indeed.

I had a lovely time over Christmas, and certainly did not want to come back to France! I had family, Paul, heating, laundry done for me, hot, powerful showers that I could spend more than ten minutes in, decent clothes shopping. And here I have French people, spiders, slugs and loneliness. Luckily it hasn't actually been too bad. I've seen a fair amount of the other assistants - went out for dinner with pretty much everyone on Tuesday, had dinner with Dana and Deborah on Wednesday, and of course, school is nice, and the kids still lovely and cute. Unfortunately Joanne has been ill with Bronchitis (!) and so I have had two days off already this week! Also unfortunately I have picked up a cough from somewhere, and it's annoying me :(.

On a plus note, after not having received anything from the Social Security people except a letter asking for a birth certificate (which I had already given them!), I went to their office with Dana and sorted it out. They found our birth certificates and gave us a letter with our numbers on, and hopefully we'll get the 'Carte Vitale' soon. By French standards :P

Also, another plus, the CAF people got back to me in record timing (under 2 weeks after application!) and are paying about 2/3 of my rent for me. SO the system does work. Also, the water people wrote too me and actually apologised (!) about their cock-up with my water bill. So France is actually working at the moment :P.

Think that's about it. Will probably hit the massive soldes (January Sales) soon and buy clothes...as long as they're nice.

Love to you all

Nielle xxx

Strasbourg (Finally!)

So, I'm using Dana's wireless since mine is awful for uploading pictures! And this is my Blog for Strasbourg.

After several fairly major transportation issues (not nice to deal with at 7.30 in the morning!) such as our tube line not working and having to get two others twice as long in half the time and nearly missing our TGV to Strasbourg, we did actually get there!

Basically Strasbourg at Christmas is a German style market (like we have in England) but on an enormous, whole city scale. It's very nice, but to be fair, most of the stalls end up selling the same things and there's nothing really good to buy for 'proper' presents, but it is an experience. However, it really lives up to it's reputation at night as you can see from the photos:


Here is a blue tree (apparently representative of Quebec who is their guest 'country' (!) this year). It hurt our eyes...lots!
These are beautifully painted cookies (gingerbread?) we saw at one of the stands.
This is the massive 'horloge' or cloak in the Cathedral itself. Every quarter of an hour it 'dings' and an angel moves. It's at 12.30 that it really gives you a show. I have a video if you wish to see it, but basically the 12 Apostles move around the figure of Jesus, Death tolls it's bell reminding us that time is short, and a really scary cockrel crows!
This is the giant (28 metres!) Sapin Noel they have in Strasbourg, at night.
Random bunnies that were moving to music.
A full view of the Christmas Tree.
A gargoyle on the side of the Cathedral. He looked pretty cool, and I've named him Fred.


And finally Santa! Or, Pere Noel. It's a decoration, but I thought he was cute :).

So, yes, that was Strasbourg. I have more photos on Facebook - so check there. And to my parents, I'll show you them all when I get home :)

I'm home in less than a week! Yay! I doubt I'll update before then, so Happy Christmas, Joyuex Noel and Frohliche Weinachten to all :D

Nielle xxx

Just a quick one...

Umm yes, just a quick update. Have been to Strasbourg and when I can be bothered to wrestle with both my internet and the horrid picture uploader, I will update properly and put in some pretty photos. Those of you on Facebook can see them already as Facebook is a lot easier to manage.

Life is good - still loving school. Can't wait to come home though and have a yaysome Christmas. Plus have been infected with the biggest spiders I have ever seen. Which is scary but we're learning to live together.

Have been Christmassing lots so far and will continue to do so this weekend and the coming week when we'll be doing Christmas stuff with the kids (not mentioning Baby Jesus of course - silly French!)

Love Nielle xxx

Paris!

Ok, firstly bear in mind that these photos are not in the right order...I can't seem to get the hang of the photo uploader...

So, we got paid last week. Dana wanted to go clothes shopping in Paris, and I wanted to go with. Thus on Friday 30th of November, we headed towards Paris.

First stop was the Rue de Rivoli for some shopping! I didn't buy anything (French fashion can either be very hit and miss or they just don't do normal people sizes!) but it was nice to just shop. By the time we finished it was lunch time so we went to a lovely Restaurant on the Rue called Angélina's. Dana has been wanting to go here for 5 years so it was pretty cool. Incredibly expensive, but lovely atmosphere and amazing desserts and hot chocolate. The hot choc was literally molten chocolate (mmm!) and the dessert we shared was Hazelnut vermicelli/paste stuff (?) over whipped cream and meringue. Oh my God amazing! But we were so full!

Next stop, Montmartre. I visited Montmartre back in year 6 and like it then :). I like it even more now :) So here are the photos:

This is the view from a random place at the back of the church.


This is the view of Paris from the top by the Church.
The other side of the view, including the Tour Montparnasse which is right by where our train from Chartres enters Paris.

This is the downward view of the gardens. Don't be fooled it's a long calf-wounding way up ^^.
And this is the famous church the Sacre Coeur. It's white and pretty. And really beautiful inside. Especially when you enter just as the choir is singing and the organ is playing. It's so much more impressive than boring old Notre Dame (I really dislike Notre Dame de Paris!).
Ummm forgive my lack of general knowledge about Paris...this is the French flag flying atop some building (? - someone please fill me in. Especially if it's famous and I should know!) Its looked pretty all lit up. What can I say?

The Champs Elysées, Arc de Triomphe end. These are the Christmas lights. It's pretty. Altough apparently now a hotspot for crime. Yay.

Champs Elysées, Jardins des Tuileries end.

Christmas lights close up. A little blurry. I was a little under sugared at this point and a little shakey...plus the lights moved. I still think the blurry kind of captures the general effect.



And again. Plus streetlamp :).

At this point we headed home. Me with headache and sheer exhaustion in tow.

Slept in on Saturday and then went to see what Chartres itself had to offer Christmas-wise. A little disappointed in the market, but it's about the same as Southampton's I guess, plus it's still very early on. And I have Strasbourg to really get me into the Christmas mood on Friday :)

Sunday went to a small produce fair which was kind of cute, but feared for our lives as incredibly strong winds practically blew the marquee down! And broke my brand new never before used umbrella too. And kept me awake.

In school we've been giving the kids their end of term tests. Most are doing ok...some doing pretty badly. Bearing in mind I set the test so they *could* pass! We have another orientation this Thursday - day off work! Which will be utterly pointless as it's about setting tests...three point who can guess what I've already done (clue, I've just talked about it -.-) Bloody French! Ah well.

I think that's about all for now. I imagine there'll be a big one for Strasbourg though (although I may upload most of the pics to Facebook since it's a lot quicker!)

Love

Nielle xxx

Thanksgiving

In America, Thanksgiving was on Thursday (22^nd). This (for those that don’t know) is a holiday to celebrate when the Native American Indians helped the Pilgrims find and grow food in their ‘new’ land. It’s almost bigger than Christmas in the States! To celebrate this festival, the American assistants planned a Thanksgiving dinner for pretty much all the assistants in Chartres. This amounted to about 20 assistants (including friends of assistants) in one girl’s flat! Our dinner consisted of Turkey (obviously), cranberry sauce, stuffing, gravy, vegetable dishes, rice dishes, pasta dishes, fruit salad, pumpkin pie and apple pie. We were rather stuffed. As good as it was, and as much as I love the American assistants, it was not a patch on a good old English Christmas dinner (especially cooked by my father and mother :)).

I had a very good evening with very pleasant company and a louder than normal Nielle! As in I was actually talking :P. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures, but other people did so when they’re up on Facebook I shall ‘steal’ them ^^.

In school news, this week has been very hard :(. For some reason the kids have suddenly decided to become louder and not pay as much attention – sometimes even when their normal class teacher is in the room! I think it might be because they don’t see us as ‘real’ teachers so they think they can play up a bit. If it gets much worse then ‘teacher Nielle’ will be surfacing. They’re still sweet though most of the time, and it’s certainly not putting me off teaching :). I saw something by another assistant: ‘sometimes they’re adorable snugglebunnies, and sometimes they’re the spawn of Satan’. This sums it up quite nicely :P

We’ve got the CE2s up to the weather and the months now and we’re starting ‘He is/She is’ whilst confusing them nicely with the fact that we also say ‘He’s/She’s’. Yay English! The CM1s and CM2s are pretty much doing the same thing. This is a combination of the fact that one CM2 class is half CM1 anyway, and the other CM2 class are the worst behaved so we’re going a lot slower. Plus it’s best to keep those at the same level doing the same thing else me and Joanne get extremely confused! The CM1 are kind of doing ‘Do you like…?’ but the CM1 we have at the other school are doing clothes. But we keep them kind of separate most of the time as they are so much better behaved and work faster; socio-economic status certainly plays a big part…(i.e that school is in the city centre and is semi-selective I think and the other where I have most of my classes is in the suburbs which are slightly rougher).

Don’t think there’s anything else, except that I’m off to Strasbourg in 2 weeks, yay! Be prepared for lots of pictures :)

Nielle

xxx

Back in La Belle France

I've been back nearly a week already! It's gone so fast.

So yes, Toussaint. Didn't do very much exactly, but got in some quality sleep and internet time :) Plus lots of warmth, Paul-ness and general family goodness. So it was nice. Got to see Chloe too and go out for a meal and to the cinema, so that was nice :)

In fantastic news, now have internet, although it does mean having to sit in my (cold) kitchen to do so. But ah well, small price to pay, n'est-ce pas? And it means that I should be on the internet less often too...which despite what many may think, is actually a good thing :P

Ok, so, back to France, teaching is still wonderful, although tiring. Have already been out for dinner with everyone and we've had a 'cocktail party' which ended up us all sitting round a computer watching weird French dancing on You-tube whilst sipping like two drinks each. Fun though :)

Got bored yesterday lunchtime and since my parents are getting/have got me a camera for Christmas, I thought I'd take the opportunity of a beautifully sunny day to take some pictures of my new home town. So here they are :)
This is the view from the back of the Cathedral. It has very pretty gardens where in the summer, lots of people come to picnic :)This is the Eure river, one of the two after which my département is named. It's pretty, no?
The same again, different side of the river.This is a random door that I was sat in front o. To either side there are very steep steps that I had just climbed down and then up again, which explains my sitting down...I thought it was pretty and kind of odd, so I took a photo.This is the Cathedral of Chartres. It's pretty :)This is the corner of my bedroom. Yes, that is a brick wall. And yes, it is indeed the wall of the carpark behind too...
This is my kitchen...note lack of microwave/oven/anything useful for cooking...

So there we go, my first ever photos! Yay! So you can all see how crappy my appartment is but how pretty my town is :D

Love

Nielle xxx

Time to come home(!)

Already! It’s terrifying that I’ve been here just over one month. It’s gone by so fast! So yes, I’m about to come home for Toussaint which is a 13 day break which encompasses Halloween, or, All Saints Day. Or, dependent on internet, I may already be home…but it’s all the same really :)

What have I been up to...well, last time I had just tried snails for the second time, so this Saturday, Dana and I went to the market again (do you see a pattern here? :P) and this time I bought my veg for the week, as it’s cheaper and nicer than Carrefour. We saw figs. I’ve had a bit of fresh fig before and vaguely remember liking it, plus I like fig rolls (or Fig Newtons as they call them over the pond…strange Americans :P), so Dana bought one for us to try. After booking our tickets to Strasbourg in December (for the Christmas market – supposedly amazing, and the source for all my Christmas presents this year I think) we tried the fig. Figs are GOOD. They are sweet and yummy and make Nielle happy :D.

I’m currently in the middle of my first ‘full’ week of teaching as previously I’ve had either orientations or the joy that is Mercredi Liberé (once a month, the half day on Wednesday turns into a full day off :)) It’s pretty tiring – to the point that I managed to sleep for an hour and a half this afternoon! But it’s so enjoyable! The kids pretty much all love me – to the point of giving me the ‘bisous’ at the end of each lesson, and one girl of 8 came up to me and sais: “Tu es trop belle” – you are very beautiful. As you can guess, I blushed. A lot. I already have favourites in each class – is that bad? (*innocent eyes*) And thing is, it’s just increasing my desire to have my own class and to teach them everything (i.e. maths, English, science etc etc). So I think I’ve made the best decision to do this for my year abroad and a pretty good decision on my future career. Yay :)

We’re doing Halloween this week in class. This is fun. The kids get so excited, and we had our CE2 class of 8 (8-9 year olds) dress up today. They were so cute! Tomorrow (Thursday 25^th) we’re doing a whole day of Halloween with sweets, decorations in the classroom and games. At least it’s a nice easy day for us!

I’ve finally given in on the heating front. Basically I said that I wouldn’t turn the heating on until at least November, because it’s a) expensive and b) ridiculous. But Chartres (and I think England too) has taken on a cold snap and it’s bloody freezing! So I have my radiator on in one room (i.e. my bedroom) and it’s toasty warm now. I was at a point of wearing 5 layers, including a thick jumper, a duvet, gloves and a blanket around my shoulders! I thought that was getting silly, hence heater-y goodness. I have also taken to having candles, because they seem to provide a semblance of warmth, cost €1,89 (yes, I found my Euro sign key!) and smell gooood! So yay.

Dana and I are planning to take some random European trips; we’ve looked in to Marrakech (not Europe, I know, but just as cheap), Norway (for the Northern Lights) and maybe Greece or Spain. Probably not all as funds are pretty tight. However we do qualify for welfare here (!) which means that France pays for about 2/3 to ¾ of our rent! Which wins. Made of pure win in fact. This means I should be getting cheques for €200 plus at some point in the future when I actually get around to applying.

I’m not sure if there’s anything else…but I am very much looking forward to going home tomorrow – so I can communicate properly with everyone! And be properly warm! And have showers that don’t go cold half way through because the hot water tank is ridiculously small! ‘Tis all good.

Love to everyone

Nielle

xxxx