Getting out of town

I actually did something on my day off yesterday, you’ll be pleased to discover. Having a nice lie-in and awaking to sun and blue sky for a change, I FINALLY made it to the market. And it was very exciting indeed. So many good smells, so many French people milling around, so much traditional produce waiting to be brought home and devoured. Despite there being some really naff clothes stalls selling frumpy underwear and the like, Melle market, like most French markets, is principally a food market. Cheeses, meats, fish, pate, fruit, veg, bread, cakes, local honey, local apple juice, local wines… It took a lot of self-restraint not to buy a bit of everything that took my fancy, but I ended up coming away with some Roquefort and some pâté paysan. 

My market purchases; Roquefort and pâté

So that was my lunch sorted, and it was definitely one of the best lunches I’ve had since I’ve been here. It may surprise you to read that after 2 and a half weeks I have so far resisted the temptation to buy a fresh baguette from the boulangerie. I know that once I buy one, it will end up being a regular occurrence, so for the sake of my hips I am sticking to the supermarket sliced brown stuff for as long as I can muster the strength!

I decided to get out of Melle for the afternoon, so I got on the bus (which is more like a coach) to Niort. The journey takes about 45 minutes, but the landscape’s so pretty, and it goes through some nice looking towns, so it’s an enjoyable ride. I got off in the city centre called Place de la Brèche which is a square with lots of bars and restaurants in. Just off it is the main pedestrianized shopping street which I went straight to. After seeing what clothes West France has to offer, I took a little detour off the beaten track (OK fine, I got a bit lost), but I found some nice little narrow streets and a church.

So my first venture into Niort has been a good one. There’s some castle thing there as well, so when I fancy a bit of culture I’ll go and have a look at that. And it’s much livelier than Melle, so I’m hoping a night out there might be on the cards at some point.

Back in my flat in Melle for the evening, I had an impromptu visit from a girl I met the other day. She’s Moroccan, is currently living in Brioux (the town where my college is), works in Melle, and gets quite bored and lonely. So she’s befriended me, and she was here for hours last night, fascinated by my British toiletries and make-up. In fact, she’s written me a list of all the things she wants me to bring back from across the Channel after Christmas! She’s lovely though, and it’s really nice to know another relatively young person in the area. And I get to practice my French without feeling under pressure at all.

Now it’s a Saturday morning, and I’m wondering what to do for the day. Tomorrow I’ve been invited to Anne-Lise’s house (one of the English teachers at the college) for lunch, so I’m excited about a proper French Sunday lunch. But for now, bon weekend.

The main reason I've come to France

I don’t think France likes me very much, as I’ve now lost 4 things in the past week. Last Saturday, an Aldi trolley refused to give me back my 1€ coin when I plugged it back into the other trolley; the washing machine gobbled up one of my favourite socks on Monday; on Tuesday a teacher stole my favourite biro; and I’ve just arrived home from the lycée work to realise that the computer forgot to remind me to take out my memory stick, thus leaving me USB-less for the foreseeable future. Quite worried about which precious item of mine this country’s going to target next.

So I’ve now had my first week as an assistant where I wasn’t just ‘observing’, but actually had to stand in front of the class and talk (albeit I only ended up doing 6 hours of lessons instead of 12). As I wrote in my previous post, the English department at the collège where I work on Tuesdays was being inspected that very day. It turns out that teachers tend only to get inspected once every five to ten years, just my luck. Needless to say, the teachers were all rather stressed. I had to do a lot of acting and role-playing in the classes in front of the inspectors, but the teachers were all hugging and kissing me and the kids now all say hi to me as I walk past them in the playground and the canteen, so I must have done something right. I really enjoy it at the collège; all the staff are so welcoming, the pupils are very friendly, and the school dinners are yummy and totally French.

The lycée is very different; the lessons are much less structured, the pupils are less enthusiastic, and despite the fact that they’re older than those at the collège, their English is weaker. So I’m going to have to get used to talking in English very slowwwwwly. That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy it there, I do. Also, Alfredo (the Mexican assistant who lives in Melle) works at the lycée the same day as me, which is nice to have. He’s easier to talk to than the teachers as well, so I get to practice talking French more.

Apart from work, I haven’t actually been up to very much at all these past few days. The weather has been rubbish for the past week (as in I got woken up by a storm this morning, and there has been some of the heaviest rain I’ve ever seen), so I haven’t exactly been venturing out around town or exploring the rest of the region. It is autumn now, I guess, so I shouldn’t be too surprised. The autumn leaves are beginning to look quite pretty though:

Melle in autumn

Naked like a worm

It’s the end of another weekend, and I’ve had a very lazy couple of days, so I’m afraid this isn’t going to break any records in the world of blogging. But I thought I should do an update so as not to disappoint my avid readers, or rather my dad.

I left you all in suspense on Friday evening, as I was about to go and check out the height of Friday night entertainment in Melle. As a student, I’m accustomed to being greeted with loud music, unpleasant smells and drunken revellers as I walk into a pub on a Friday night. On entering the Café du Boulevard to meet Mike and Alfredo, however, the majority of the punters were in their 50s or above, sitting around tables playing board games. This is Melle, I suppose…

After chatting in French for a bit (as Alfredo doesn’t speak English, so French is the only common language for the 3 of us) we decided to do as all the others were doing and get a game out the cabinet. We picked Scrabble, as it was about the only one we recognised, and in fact we ended up having a great night! Who knew you could learn so much new vocabulary whilst drinking vodka and cokes?! That’s another thing about the Café (or it might be France in general, I haven’t discovered yet); there seems to be no such thing as a measure for alcohol, they just freely fill half your glass with vodka and dilute it slightly with coke. Anyway, the most interesting piece of vocabulary we learnt, and which I give you all permission to use when an appropriate occasion arises, is ‘être nu comme un ver’ which literally means ‘to be naked like a worm’, but which idiomatically translates to ‘to be stark naked’.

Apart from having a French woman come up to our table and tell us that some of the words we’d spelt didn’t in fact exist in the French language, we finished the game (or rather, gave up) feeling quite proud of our achievement. Here’s how it ended:

Saturday consisted of buying food from Aldi, and sitting in front of Skype for the rest of the day, and Sunday wasn’t much more exciting. Although I did go to church in the église Sainte-Hilaire, my favourite place in Melle. With it being an 800-year-old World Heritage Site, I felt quite lucky to be able to celebrate mass in such a beautiful building that’s only a 3 minute walk from my flat.

Today also involved receiving lesson plans from the teachers I’ll be working with this week, which was a little bit scary, especially as there are going to be inspectors present in 2 of my classes. Obviously they’re there to inspect the main teachers and not me, but it’s still a little disconcerting!

Oh and I also made myself a sort of Croque Madame for lunch earlier, which I got quite excited about. Here it is, my first attempt at trying to adopt a more French way of life:

That’s actually quite a long post for having done so little this weekend, but my lovely boyfriend’s waiting to Skype me, so I shall bid you all au revoir.

Paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork...

Now I understand the extent to which everybody detests French administration. Instead of having a lie-in on my day off and finally getting to the market in town, I had to wake up at 6:45 in order to get a lift to the lycée, where I have now been for almost 4 hours trying to work out what documents I need to send off to get paid, as well as struggling to figure out how I should receive my social security number, which is compulsory if living in France. Anyway, after a whole morning of having teachers phone around, photocopying paperwork, reading advice online etc., we’ve ended up guessing what we should send off in the hope that I will receive some sort of payment.

I realise I haven’t blogged for 2 days; Wednesday was rather uneventful apart from signing up at the local médiateque so I can take out French books and DVDs for the year, and yesterday was spent in Poitiers along with all the other assistants in the Académie de Poitiers, for an induction course.

The initial challenge of the day had been how we were going to get to Poitiers for 9am, what with the public transport option meaning that we’d have had to take the 5.55am bus from Melle. Luckily, the other assistant in Melle, Mike, found a carshare to and from Poitiers at the right times for us. It worked out brilliantly, especially considering it only cost us 4€ each for the round trip.

The day in general though was pretty boring, with its focus being on administrative necessities. However, it was great being able to meet the other assistants and find out who else is living relatively near to me, as well as getting out of Melle and seeing a bit of Poitiers.

Poitier's Hotel de Ville

So overall not a particularly exciting few days, in fact it’s been quite frustrating, but tonight I’m hoping to go to a games night at the Café du Boulevard which takes place on the first Friday of every month. Hopefully that will be fun and I’ll meet some more French people. I shall let you know how it goes!

Au collège

Today marked my first official day as une assistante, and as I awoke to my 06:45 wake up call, I won’t deny I was slightly nervous. I really didn’t have anything to worry about though; the teachers were all so friendly despite my difficulty in understanding them sometimes, and the kids were lovely and really well-behaved. I didn’t have to do any teaching just yet, but was instead subjected to a Q&A session from 5 different groups of children. I think the most complicated question I had to deal with ‘Who is your favourite celebrity’; although I was a bit taken aback when a boy asked me if my parents are divorced.

It will be more of a challenge when it comes to having a more proactive role in the classroom, but I’m really looking forward to working with the pupils over the coming months and hopefully witnessing an improvement in their language proficiency.

I also (finally) set up my French bank account today, so I can get paid, yay! Absolutely no idea what the bank person was telling me as I signed about 20 different documents, my first proper taste of the good ol' French bureaucracy, but I trust it’s all legal as my supervisor was there with me throughout the meeting.

Not a particularly interesting day in terms of blogging potential, but I now have no work for a week, so who knows what adventures I’ll have until then! Stay tuned, mes amis!

A beautiful realisation

Who said Monday is the worst day of the week?! On the contrary I’ve had a lovely day. The fact that I’m not working on Mondays might have something to do with it I suppose…

I woke up to another beautiful day, with a list of errands for the day. I needed to go to the office de tourisme as I still didn’t have a map of the town, collect a letter from the post office, and go shopping for food. Having faffed around as usual in the morning, I didn’t make it out till about midday. Once again I had forgotten that every single establishment closes down for lunch in France. Arriving at the post office, I found it had closed 9 minutes ago, my trip to the tourist office following suit. Putains!

I ended up, however, wandering around the town a bit more, discovering even more little roads and alleys, visiting inside the churches, and falling in love with the town. 

Une rue Melloise

I can now say that I am so happy to have been placed in this part of the country, in such an historic and picturesque town. It may be a bit out in the sticks and lacking in people my age, but it is so typically French, and there are certain areas where I could happily sit for hours admiring the scenery.

Eglise Saint-Savinien

It’s going to be a good year, I feel.

And the weekend has arrived...

My first weekend in France has been a weekend of 2 major discoveries! Firstly, there exists another English person in Melle, and secondly, I am incredibly unfit.

Prior to Saturday I’d come to the depressing conclusion that I was the only foreigner in this oh so French town. Add to this the fact that my French ‘housemates’ are the most boring and unsociable people that I’ve come across, and I was feeling pretty lonely on Saturday. A sudden brain wave reminded me of list I’d been sent a couple of months ago of all the assistants in France, and their whereabouts. A quick look down the list told me that there is indeed another assistant placed in Melle. One email later, and I now know another Englishman in Melle. Phew.

My second discovery came about through a 9.15 Sunday morning cycle ride. My supervisor had texted me the night before asking me if I wanted to go with her, so I thought why not, should be a nice fun way to see some of the Mellois countryside. What I didn’t realise was her husband was coming along as well, and the two of them go cycling every Sunday morning through hilly terrain, meaning their bodies were slightly more in form than mine. 3 hours later and I couldn’t feel anything waist-down. Ironically, the majority of the route we took was along the Chemin de la Découverte (for any non-French speakers, that literally means ‘Road of discovery’)! Needless to say I won’t be taking up her invitation for a repeat next Sunday if I should get one…

The one and only plus side to the morning was that I got to see another nearby town called Celles-sur-Belle. And in the morning sunshine with its ‘Royal abbey’, it was rather glorious! I also got to watch a bit of honey extracting by a local bee-keeper, which was nice and culturally enriching.

L'abbaye Royale in Celles-sur-Belle

Followed by an afternoon and evening of skyping family and friends and the boyfriend back home because my poor overworked legs wouldn’t take me very far, it ended up all in all not a bad first weekend in my new country of residence!