Feb 2008

Have had an excellent weekend!!! Sunshine was out again (although Saturday was kinda windy and very cold at times) and we headed up North to Poitiers and the nearby Futuroscope theme park. Had an excellent time: the company was brilliant, we just got on so well (bonded you could say) and I haven't laughed so much in ages, Futuroscope was AMAZING, we had a good "story-for-the-grandchildren" almostabandoned moment and got to tick another French city off my list.

So 5.45am Saturday morning R.D.V at the gare with Molly, Catherine, Eddie and Hari. Random-conversation filled train journey from Bordeaux and then Bordeaux to the gates of Futuroscope (on the TGV) picking up Tim and Rachel en route. 9.45am arrival at Futuoscope. Cameras out. Tickets bought: an absolute bargaintastic 10euros each, as all of us who were 20 got in for free and through the means of student cards/internet vouchers we managed to reduce the price for the others too and split it between us, so, yeah, loving that! So Futuroscope is a theme park but it's nothing like any other theme park I've ever seen. As Wiki describes it: "The Parc du Futuroscope is a French theme park based upon multimedia, cinematographic and audio-visual techniques of the future." So basically it's lots of huge architecturally interesting buildings with massive cinemas, 360 degree cinemas, 3D cinemas, 4D cinemas, shows, simulators and other atractions. Basically right up my street, have always loved simulators but just don't do big rollercoasters/anything which makes you go upside down so normally theme parks are not really great for me, but this one rocked! (there was only one thing I wouldn't go on, "Dance with robots" which was most of the others' favourite he he!).

We were really lucky in that the queues really weren't that bad at all and we managed to do most of the stuff we really wanted to. It really was an impressive place. The simulators were really fun, and some of the films (for example a 3D "Under the sea" and a trip down the Nile on a screen the size of two tennis courts) were just amazing. There was also this clever thing where you wore special mirrored glasses, held onto a bar to walk along and had the feeling that you were walking on the ceiling; was really quite a bizarre sensation. The 4D film was a tour of the local area by air, boat and racing car led by this bizarre tree-man who sneezed all of you (the 4D part being his "snot" squirting at your face!).

In the evening there was a "spectacle" over the massive lake with video, water, lights and fireworks all combined in some crazy, nonsense story but very pretty and impressive to watch. Then we meandered our way through the departing crowds out of the main gates (stopping for a photo with a gorilla) and waited for our bus into town. And waited. And waited. And saw the car-park empty. And saw the staff leave. And found out we were 20km from town/food/warmth. And practiced huddling like penguins. And discussed cannebalism. And played the silly animal game. And then eventually (an hour later I think?) the bus rocked up. Halllllelujaih!

Then we wandered around the city in search of food (Saturday night no problem right?! wrong) and eventually opted for Quick (French McDonalds). By this point we were pretty hungry and chicken dippers have never tasted so good. But we were still laughing and the in-jokes continued. Next job was sorting out bus to our hostel but that went surprisingly well and once we'd sorted out out Youth Hostel cards and inspected the mostly-clean sheets and stinky toilets and went back down to the common room and bar. We drank the bar dry that night. That's to say we drunk the 5 bottles of beer (1 euro!) and 3 bottles of water they had available! ha ha ha! Played pool, and headed to bed; had been an early start and a busy day.

But we were up and at 'em again on Sunday. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a 10am bus. Got us some patisserie/coffees/jus d'orange and then hit Poitiers. Being a Sunday none of the shops etc were open but had a really nice time wandering around and really liked the city. There were some cute little rues and beautiful churches and we found a lovely park with an amphitheatre were we premiered some new and original theatrical works and spun around in circles like the children we are. We also found a really nice restaurant where we had a long lunch of pizza and yummy desserts and then it was almost time to begin the journey home again entertained by looking through the 700+ photos we had between us.

Overall though an excellent time. Am well looking forward to Arcachon in Spring Break and hope we can do another weekend like that next term sometime.

Was shattered when I got back last night (i.e. just enough energy to put my photos onto Facebook before going to bed). This week I'm doing Penfriend letters with my pupils, and depending on how that goes I might do a little bit on "English Literature" i.e. a random lesson reading them "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"/"Jack et le haricot magique"/the poem "What is pink?" and doing tongue twisters! Then it's vacances time! 2 days to packing/spring cleanage of flat/theme planning for next term, then home/Bath, then Molly and Rachel and I are off for The Big Adventure South.

Some photos from the weekend (check out Facebook for more, they're wicked!):

http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2008/02/15/nicolas-sarkozy-et-xavier-darcos-font-bloc-pour-reformer-l-ecole-primaire_1011760_823448.html#ens_id=861150

Aye so Sarkozy has been and gone I think. Arrived by private jet into the little airport here, visited one of the local schools (although not mine), the museum and gave a little speech at the theatre about school reforms (getting rid of Saturday mornings and a return to the "fundamentals", reading, writing etc). Basically just a chance to try and get some brownie points (at the invitation of M Darcos, mayor of Perigueux and minister for education) in a town which originally voted 56% Royal and is now even more anti-Sarko.

Have been hanging around in town...lots of camers and Catherine another assistant got a glimpse of him, but I'm still waiting for the call...

Early night tonight: 5am start tomorrow for a weekend at Futuroscope and Poitiers, can't wait!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! One of the teachers had flowers delivered to school today, and Rachel, the lucky duck, got a crepe from a boy called Valentin (his mum made a whole load because it's "his day"...how cute is that?!). I did ok too; my boyfriend was lucky with the (very variable) postal service and my card and pressie arrived this morning :-)

"Hey There Delilah"...am sick of the song, it seems to have been replaced Mika as the song ALWAYS playing when you go into a shop/on the bus etc etc.

Children were really sweet today; we had fun lessons finishing off sports etc and I was out in the playground for a bit at lunchtime and they all crowd round me and were showing off how they could skip AND count in English at the same time. Little geniuses I tell you my mini-Frenchies.

And, BIG NEWS: Sarkozy is expected in Perigueux tomorrow. And, no less, he's coming to talk about reforms to the primary school system!!! The mayor of Perigueux (until March at least) is also the Education Minister so yeah Sarko's gonna be in town; reckon he'll want to meet the Best English Assistant Ever?! It's pretty funny actually. These people voted him in 8 months ago, are stuck with him for 5 or 6 years and now it seems they all hate him...like his popularity has fallen by 16% in a MONTH....and I haven't heard one person speak positively of him.

When I got my 12-25 railway card (which gives me usually 50% off of train fares), they also sent me a "S'miles" carte de fidelite. (Which is funny enough in itself being a play on two English words, neither of which are used in French and one of which doesn't even exist here in the land of kilometres). But anyway I use it when I buy train tickets and also in Monoprix where I do a lot of my food shopping (and buy other random stuff), although to be honest I don't bother getting it out of my purse everytime. I just checked my online account out of interest and it turns out I'm halfway to getting a FREE 2nd class train ticket (to pretty much anywhere it seems) which is wicked. Yay!

Have had a really nice afternoon. The sun is shining and theres a slight breeze and I've been outside for a good 4/5 hours and feel lovely and refreshed. So first off I went for lunch with Molly, Eddie and Cecile which was good and we had some good French chat goin' on. Then Molly and I met up with Susan and Tim who are two assistants at Nontron I hadn't seen in AGES AND AGES. Was cool to have a chat with them and we walked along the canal which I hadn't done before, was very nice and tranquille with pretty little allotments down there. Then we came back into town and sat outside a cafe with Lou, Lynn and Catherine for a bit and chatted and got some rays; all very pleasant.

They are building a Casino supermarket next door (unfortuanately no high stakes gambling involved, just loaves of bread) and it seems 8am-9am is optimum time for drilling and banging. Oh and a Wednesday when Lucy doesn't have to get up would be an ESPECIALLY good day. grr. grr. grr. Oh well, up and at them.

Yesterday night we went to see Fin de Partie (by Beckett) at the theatre. Nice bit of one-act, minamilist scenery, existentialist lovin'. I actually enjoyed it (although not so sure about the others I dragged along...). Still don't 'get it', but it made a HELL of a lot more sense on stage, i.e. the funny bits were actually kinda funny, and was just really cool to see it performed as its meant to be. Shame I can't write the programme for Perigueux theatre for next few months to include all my Racine stuff too.

Otherwise have been reading thrilling European law/economy books so I can try and get a plan written up for the old Year Abroad Essay before the holidays.

Have got three lessons off this week with classes on visits/ski-ing etc so worked 8.30am-10am yesterday! love it!

Ooo and am super excited to have finally found two English schools who are really keen to set up links with mine. Unfortuanately the school we sent Xmas cards to didn't send any back and haven't been in touch. So I signed up to Global Gateway and have been inundated with contact from really enthusiastic schools in Britain. Been in contact with two and we're going to exchange penfriend letters in the next few weeks. Spoke to a teacher on the phone yesterday and he was so nice, even offering me to go and visit his school and he's going to set up a special blog for my students to interact with each other on. He's also got loads of ideas for projects we can do together so shall see what comes of all that. It seems really impotant to me to make English 'real' for these kids.

Valentines Day tomorrow. Seems to be a similiar thing here to at home...primarily a big money maker for restaurants, chocolate shops etc. Talking to the American assistants it seems like a bigger deal at home for them, someone described it as more of a general 'love-fest', with even primary school kids sending cards to all their friends and stuff. So spread the love people!

There, one blog entry with not a mention of food insight.