Sweden in December.

I've been rather quiet on here recently. Christmas happened, which meant I was preoccupied with present-opening, cake-eating and other assorted festivities. Oh, and I type this from a shiny new laptop. Finally!

I spent the first week of the holidays in Sweden, which was good. It was weird going from one foreign country to another, but it was nice to escape France for a bit. Getting across Paris in the snow was an experience, but it was quite nice to see the Eiffel Tower in the snow.

I arrived in Stockholm on the 18th and stayed until the 24th. Not a long time, but still enough to see Frida's family, friends and relatives. We made a gingerbread igloo, leaped around in the snow and ate vast quantities of dill-flavoured crisps.


The gingerbread igloo, painstakingly glued together by Frida and I. There definitely isn't a bowl hidden inside to keep it standing:



A photo of Frida's back garden. Ridiculously picturesque; ridiculously cold (looks much better once clicked on):



Frida in the Christmas market in Stockholm. Better than the Nantes market by far, as it actually felt christmassy. The two feet of snow may've helped:



An inquisitive Swedish deer:

Fleeing France.

Interestingly enough, the last five posts on this blog have been from five different computers:

My laptop
Collège Gutenberg computer
Collège Anne de Bretagne computer
Internet café computer
Charles de Gaulle airport computer

At one of these places, some virus-y thing managed to get into my emails and recommend a variety of interesting-looking health remedies to all of my contacts. if you got one, apologies! Alternatively, you could actually invest in the remedy 'I' recommended - it might work!

My flight leaves in just over an hour, I hope. This terminal is not the prettiest place in the world, so it'll be nice to leave:



If all goes well, the next time I write on here will be from Sweden (and another different computer), when i'll hopefully have something more than computer woes to recount.

Stupid strikes.

I am in an internet café today, so it's going to be a short post. But, an informative one.

Strikes are fun when you're participating, but not when you're on the other side.

In two days I leave Nantes, to go to Stockholm. Slight problems though. My TGV arrives at Paris Montparnasse, but my flight to Sweden leaves from Paris Charles de Gaulle. Normally, i'd have to take the RER train across Paris. But, there's curently a strike, so i'd usually just have to take the Metro instead. However, there's another strike on the Metro, so i'll have to get a taxi. Or, if they too have by then decided to have a spontaneous strike, i'll have to walk. All the way across Paris. With a huge heavy suitcase. Grr.

To throw another spanner into the works, I see on the BBC website that there's a cabin-crew strike planned by British Airways staff, rendering 90% of flights cancelled or delayed for 12 days over Christmas. Twelve days into which my return-to-England-in-time-for-Christmas flight falls. So, apparently I might be spending Christmas in Sweden too. We'll see.

On the plus side, there is snow forecast for Nantes, Stockholm and Horsham. I'm fairly sure that due to my country-hopping, i'll miss all three, but again, we'll see.

Computer Update.

So, an update on the computer situation. It's still dead, and there doesn't seem to be any imminent revival on the horizon. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

My bank card is only going to be activated and sent to me once i've uploaded a photo of myself onto the bank's website, which I now can't do. I'm reluctant to use a public computer, as some sneaky French man will probably steal my password, PIN, then money. Not good. Basically, I won't get my French bank card until about February. I leave in April. Hmm.

Also, the generic lesson for the next couple of weeks was the classic 'Christmas wordsearch', which was to be found on the internet, and I also can't talk to anyone on Skype, rendering me completely cut off from the world.

I'm typing this in the CDI at my Thursday-and-Friday school. The CDI's basically a library, but with less books, less computers, and more chairs. Facebook is blocked here. Upsetting stuff! It doesn't help that the keyboard is all messed up and French too, so I keep typing Qs instead of As.

Basically, I miss my computer. I'm probably a bit too reliant on it, to be honest. What did people do before the internet?! I might have to read one of those 'book' things, or even talk to someone in real life. Frightening!

Death of a computer.

The laptop has died - i'm writing this from the staff room in one of my schools. There won't be many updates until Christmas now. Useless technology.

St. Nazaire. Avoid.

The weather forecast for yesterday was 20% chance of rain. For Nantes, that's as close as it gets to a dry day so we decided to venture to the beach. The nearest coastal town to Nantes is St. Nazaire, so we met at the Gare SNCF and hopped on a train towards the sea.

The rolling-screen on the train informed us that we'd be arriving in St. Nazaire at 12h57. We looked out the window and saw: a sewage works, an oil refinery, gasworks, a motorway and a nuclear power station. Looking at my phone, I saw the time was 12:57. Welcome to St. Nazaire:



Firstly, the 20% chance of rain forecast was a lie. It drizzled for almost the whole day. Walking towards the beach was cold, damp and miserable. The scenic route to the coast went through an industrial estate, past a derelict supermarket and a demolition site. When we finally arrived at the sweeping sandy beach this was the sight/site that greeted us:



Not a single person on the beach, howling wind, driving rain, and not even any cosy seafront cafés to hide in. Just a vast, miserable expanse of grey.

After the disappointment of the beach, we headed towards the town centre. Which, again, was dreary and dreadful. There was a whole row of funeral directors and stonemasons (every sign you can see in the photo is a funeral directors, except for the Axa one - life insurance):



We did eventually find a relatively-new shopping centre, but it was just the chains which seem to be in every town in France, and they've all got branches in Nantes anyway. The highlight of the whole trip was seeing the Airbus boat, which they use to transport the fuselage sections of the A380 from Germany to France. The factory in St. Nazaire makes further parts of the fuselage, before it gets shipped down to Toulouse where it al gets pieced together. Think Airfix, but on a much grander scale.




To summarise, never go to St. Nazaire. I will be actively avoiding it for the rest of my life, and urge other people to do the same.

Christmas Market.

Yesterday evening, I met up with some other assistants (three Welsh, one English, one American), and went to the Nantes Christmas Market. It looked really festive, with lights, tinsel, christmas trees and fake snow in every direction. It's basically row upon row of wooden sheds, with people selling their stuff from the window. The music coming out of all the speakers sounded like they might have borrowed my MP3 player though - Muse, then Kasabian followed by Scarlett Johansson. Not festive, but nice nonetheless...!

There are actually two markets in the town centre - one in Place du Commerce, near Fnac (the CD shop/HMV place) and one in Place Royale, where there's usually just a fountain and a pavement artist.

We each got a cup of steaming mulled wine and wandered around, looking at all the overpriced things for sale. Monopoly for 50€, a little wooden giraffe for 25€. I assume it's aimed at tourists, even though they don't seem to be very common in Nantes. Here's a bunch of pictures of the markets. It's quite hard to take decent pictures outside in the dark, but I managed to get a few half-decent ones:

(again, clicking on the photos makes them look a bit better)

Noël á Nantes.

Regent Street tries its best, but has no hope of matching the festivities that can be found in a certain little shed on Rue des Friches, Nantes.

Firstly, there's the tree. The label in the shop reliably informed me that it was a five-foot tree for 5.50€. Upon getting it home, however, and eagerly opening the box, it turned out to be about two feet tall. I assembled it and put it on the floor, where it's flimsy branches barely reached my knee. Pathetic. Luckily, with a bit of straggly tinsel, some lights and some deceptive photography, it doesn't look too bad: (the pictures all look better if you click on them)



I found these little fellows in Ikea. They're amazing. I think they're made from wool and stuffed with something or other. I bought a pack of ten of them, and hung them all over the tree, where they all look very content and snuggly among the branches:



On the wall opposite the tree, there's the shelving unit which has been adorned with more tinsel and lights. Battery powered lights from Wilkinson's in Horsham, at that. They only cost £1.99 - bargain! The trouble is, all the lights are LED things, so when you turn off the proper ceiling light, you can't see a thing. Christmas is all a bit impractical, really.



The Christmas lights and markets are all up-and-running in the centre of Nantes now. I'm going into the centre tomorrow night to see them, and will be sipping mulled wine in the (fake) snow to the sound of an accordion... Couldn't do that in Regent Street.

School days.

You may've noticed that I don't really mention the teaching on here a lot. Admittedly, it's what i'm here to do, but it's always pretty similar. I'll be starting Christmas lessons soon though which'll make a change. Until then, however, the anecdotes from the schools are pretty thin on the ground. One interesting one, however:

The younger pupils have decided that it is no longer sufficient to say 'Good morneeng, Gaveen' whenever they see me. They've gradually moved onto an interesting variety of other English greetings, such as 'What is your favourite season?' or 'Where is London?'. They say these things as they're running past, so I rarely have time to answer. This morning, I was greeted by one eleven-year old who proudly proclaimed 'My favoureet colour is green, but I preefer red." Good for you.

This is the school I teach in on Mondays and Tuesdays - Collège Anne de Bretagne:



This is the Thursday and Friday school - Collège Gutenberg:

Art Gallery

Today, as part of a 'cultural day', I went to visit the 'Musée des Beaux Arts' in Nantes. Basically, an art gallery. It was surprisingly big, and they had a few artists I actually knew, like Kandinsky, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rodin and Renoir.



The museum itself, as you can see from the staircase photo, is pretty grand. And, as it was Wednesday lunchtime, it was quite empty.

My favourite painting was one by Picasso, but I also liked this next one. I'm not even sure what's going on in it, but it made a nice change from the Renaissance works:



I've decided, however, that a lot of art is overrated. Water lilies are all very nice and everything, but was it really necessary to paint them 250 times, Claude?! And the record price for a Monet Water Lillies is £41,000,000. Too, much, I reckon. Especially when there's still 249 others knocking around, and you can buy a full-size print in the museum shop for 15€.

Striker.

Today, I took part in an age-old French tradition, and went on strike. Instead of the five hours which I was meant to teach, I did one. For the rest of the day, I read the paper, had lunch and drank coffee, and other assorted strike-y things.

I'm not sure why I was striking, either. The local paper tells me it was against the gradual erosion of public services and the change in Lycée (sixth form) regulations. But, I think it was simply due to the fact that they haven't had one for a few months, and felt today was a reasonable day to do it.

Real-life internet.

On the 12th July 2009, I posted this on here. I'd simply searched for 'Saint Herblain' on Google, and copied across one of the first photos that had appeared.

On the 21st November 2009, I was sitting on the tram, on line two, going towards the 'Francois Mitterand' tram stop. I looked out of the window, and there was the same sign, accompanied by the same block of flats and same ominous CCTV warning.

How satisying.

Le Violon Dingue

Yesterday, being Sunday, is generally a pretty quiet day in Nantes, and France in general. Literally everything is shut. Shops, banks, museums, newsagents. Even a lot of the boulangeries close.

However, in the evening, the bars in the town centre open up. So, I decided to be adventurous and went to a small bar/music venue called 'Le Violon Dingue'. A small band called Rivari'cha were playing there. They describe themselves as Acoustic/Swing/Rock, which seems fairly accurate. There were five of them in total - two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer and a violinist.

They all seemed to be part of the same family and had, as Caitlin (another assistant) put it, the 'family nose'. Not a particularly spectacular proboscis, but they all had it. If, by this point, you're convinced you want to hear Rivari'chi, you can find them at this link.

Here's some pictures from the gig. We were pretty much at the back - there must've been a maximum of 30 people there. The photos are blurred, but it gives a vague sense of what it was like. I think you can click on the second one to make it bigger and all panoramic.

Food á la France.

In my 'shed', there's only a microwave and two electric hobs. No toaster, no kettle, but more importantly, NO OVEN. So, i've had to resort to making food that's not oven based for the last month. Underneath are a few examples.

Some of them tasted better than they looked.
Most of them looked better than they tasted.

This first one is ostrich. Yep, ostrich. I found a section in Auchan, the nearest supermarket, which has strange meats from around the world. Ostrich tastes similar to beef - I had mine well-done, as it was a thick piece, and I didn't fancy getting ostrich-poisoning... This was actually the second ostrich meal I had - the first was with baked beans, which went surprisingly well with it.




This next meal is pork in a roquefort sauce. Pork seems to be the cheapest meat here, so i've been eating a fair amount of it. Sorry, pigs.




These are authentic Swedish meatballs, from Ikea. The Ikea in Nantes is pretty close to both of my schools, so I can pop in on the way home and get interesting Swedish food. My kitchen currently contains: dillsill, kottbullar, salt sill, djungelvral, lingonsylt, lingonsaft och senap. For you non-Swedes, that's rollmops, meatballs, licorice, licorice monkeys, linonberry sauce, lingonberry juice and mustard. Probably won't use them all in the same meal.




This last meal is a good, old-fashioned steak. I made the chips on the hob, but had to keep juggling everything around to cook it all. There's two hobs, but they're so close together that you can't really fit two pans on at the same time. Useless, really...



Anyway, one of the main points of this was to show Mum and Dad that i'm actually eating healthily. Look, Mum - Brussels' sprouts, broccoli, carrots, potatoes, and salad. Healthy Gavin.

To-do List.

So, i've been in Nantes for almost two months. It feels like a lot longer, which is odd. Also, I went home for a week, so i've only really been here for a few days!

Anyhow, there's still a lot of things I need to visit here. The trouble is, as I live here, I keep thinking I 'can do it another day'. It's probably the same with London, though, I imagine there's a fair few Londoners who've never been on the London Eye, for example!

So, these are on my to-do list:

La Cigale - a Brasserie which has been described by Jean-Louis Trintignant as "perhaps the most beautiful brasserie in the world." I'm not entirely sure who he is, but it's not a bad recommendation regardless.




This is the main castle in Nantes - Le Château des Ducs de Bretagne. I've walked past it countless times, but I am still yet to explore the museum inside. Apparently it's well-worth a visit.




This last picture is a place that i've visted a lot, but I thought it was a nice photo, so i'd put it on here anyway. The square's called Place Royale, and there's this fountain in the middle. Apparently there'll be some kind of Christmas market there soon, but it's still a bit early. They celebrate Christmas in December here, and not August, like England seems to.



I didn't take any of these photos, i'm afraid. When I visit the place in question, i'll take some and put them on here.

France vs. Ireland

Last night, I went to an Irish bar in the centre of Nantes to watch the World Cup qualifier. I wasn't entirely sure what was going on at first, but it seemed that France needed to win the game to get into the World Cup in 2010.

So, when Ireland scored, things were not looking good for Les Bleus. At 90 minutes, the game was somehow equal (based on aggregate over two 'legs'), so it went into extra time. Then eventually, France scored, and went on to draw the match at 1-1.

Then, the bar erupted; France had apparently qualified for the World Cup. Cue extravagant French-style celebrations: anything from people hanging out of car windows with flags to people perched on the roof of cars clinging onto the roof-rack, frantically shouting and brandishing an oversized French flag.

Parnassus.

I went to the cinema in the centre of Nantes yesterday, to see a film called 'The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus'. It was in English, but with French subtitles. Ssh, i'm allowed an occasional English indulgence.



It's an very odd film, based loosely around the idea that the Doctor has a travelling sideshow that can channel peoples dreams. Anyway, there's a lot of strange dream-sequences, interspersed with extremely 'normal' situations. In one scene, for example, the sideshow pulls up into the carpark of Homebase before one of the dream-trips, which is a pretty strange juxtapostion of everyday life and crazy-fantasy.

I'm no film critic, but I liked it. Some of the jokes seem to be lost on the French, however, as the subtitles couldn't translate the humour. It's always interesting reading the sous-titres when you know what's actually being said in both languages. One example was when the phrase "sure as eggs is eggs" was used. The French equivelant was "sure as 2 + 2 = 4".

After the film I went and had a Thai meal - chicken with ginger. It was delicious, until I realised it tasted the same as a gingerbread man, which then put me off slightly. I then went home and watched the Ireland v. France football match on TV. And supported Ireland.

All in all, not a very 'French' day.

Jardin des Plantes.

Surprisingly for November, the weather in Nantes was quite nice yesterday. I was wondering around the town centre in short-sleeves, which I doubt you could do in England... (I was a bit cold, to be honest. Still, it wasn't freezing).

I met a few of the other assistants, and we went to see the Jardin Des Plantes The. literal meaning is 'Garden of Plants', which you'd think would be obvious, really. You wouldn't go to the 'Café of Drinks' or the 'Zoo of Animals', would you...?

Anyway, it was a pretty nice place, which seemed to be slightly English-themed. There was a small palm-house which loked suspiciously similar to the one at Kew. Thieving French gardeners.

There were some deer in one corner of the garden, and some ducks sitting in the pond in the middle. There were a few waterfalls as well, one of which you could walk behind. I was half-expecting some Enid Blyton-style secret passages behind the waterfall, but there were none. Disappointing; I quite fancied catching a few smugglers.


The view across the pond to the waterfall.


The palm house.


View from behind the waterfall.

House? Flat? Studio? ...Shed.

I've finally moved into my new house. It's not really much of a house, to be honest. Still, it has a roof and four walls, so I can't really complain. It's near the Longchamp tram stop, if you know Nantes. And, if you don't, here's a convenient map:

(for the less-technological people, you can zoom in and out of my house by clicking on the - or + buttons on the left. It should automatically find my road)


View my road in a larger map if this one is too small!

The interior is fairly basic. The mini-plan thing I posted here last month is surprisingly accurate, actually. Everything works, including the heater, which is nice, as there was a frost this morning. Underneath are some photos of various corners of the house.

iHalloween

So, firstly, apologies for lack-of-updates recently. I've been a busy man, running all over the world.

Last week was the Toussaints holiday. It's like the English half-term, but a few days longer. I decided to trek back to England for a few days. I started off with a few days in Reading, then visited Louisa (my sister) in Oxford, before going up to Leamington Spa to see my friends from Horsham. Then, eventually I returned to Horsham for a couple of days to see Mum, Dad and Ross (my brother).

Halloween was during my Reading stint of the holidays. So, in true-student form, I dressed up to go to the Students' Union. Frida and I figured that most scary costumes would be covered - my friends were going as devils, zombie, mummies, witches etc.

In a stroke of genius/insanity, Frida came up with the idea of dressing as iPod headphones. Yep, these:



Using lampshades, old Primark t-shirts and Frida's sewing-machine skills, we came up with a pretty good attempt at headphones:



The only slight problem now is that I will undoubtedly have to recount my Halloween experiences to various pupils in my class. They'll either think that i'm completely insane or that everyone in England dresses up strangely on October 31st.

I think i'll go with the latter.

Chez Moi

So, I finally have my own place to live! I wouldn’t call it a house. Or even really a flat. Almost like an annexe, I think. It used to be a garage, but the family converted it to a mini-studio.



I only looked around it for about five minutes before agreeing to have it. But, from what I could remember, it seemed pretty nice!

It has a mezzanine double bed thing. Basically a bunk bed, but built-in to the house. Underneath is a wardrobe and bookshelves and a desk. I think. There was definitely wood there, anyway.

A TV with proper signal and a DVD player. Always good.

A mini-garden. I can plant plenty of flowers and make the view from the windows all pretty.

A front door. My own front door. I’ll bring out the French handwriting and put ‘M. Gavin GREENE’ on a little label.

A kitchenette. ‘Ette’ being a key part of the word. From what I could remember, there were two hob-rings, a sink, fridge and cupboard. Oh, and a microwave. Notice the lack of oven. Can you cook a pizza on the hob?

The bathroom is pretty small, but has a shower in one corner, then a sink and a toilet in the other corners. Small, but good enough.

It has WiFi too. Which means I can finally catch up on various programmes that I’ve missed.

Once I’ve moved in (on Wednesday evening) I’ll take some photos and put them on here. Until then, the drawing at the top of the page will have to suffice.

Crazy French Farmers...

The centre of town was rather busy today. Though not with commuters. Instead, there were 315 tractors, 5000 farmers, and numerous blazing piles of hay. I think that photographs are far more apt at conveying the extent of the protest, so i'll leave it to them.

Oh, and I think they were protesting about milk and lack of money for farmers, but you couldn't see the banners due to the smoke. Counterproductive farmers...

Trop de Leffe.

A couple of nights ago, I went to a bar in the Quartier Bouffay, which is the area between the Cathedral and the Castle. Not a place you’d generally expect there to be much trouble…



We were innocently sitting outside a bar, when a drunk guy (who we shall name Pierre) stumbled over to us, asking for a lighter. Another assistant, Ceri, willingly obliged, and handed his over. Pierre clumsily lit his cigarette, returned the lighter, and then promptly sneezed, launching the freshly-lit cigarette from his mouth. Not a good start.

Ten minutes passed before Pierre came over again, once more demanding a lighter. This time, however, it seemed that the large amounts of Leffe had hindered his manners, and he started to get louder and aggressive. (I think it was aggressive, anyway. My French-understanding is still somewhat lacking. It was definitely louder.)

The barman thus decided that Pierre had enough, and it was probably time for him to go to bed. Pierre, however, seemed to have other ideas, and started to get more and more agitated. I’m told there was a head butt involved, but I didn’t get to see that bit. Shame.

The next thing we knew, there was a squad of police marching down the road towards the café. Bear in mind Pierre was just one guy. The first ‘wave’ of police officers grabbed him, and pulled him away from the doorway, deciding it was easiest to hold him by his throat. The second ‘wave’ then turned up (another five officers), to stand around and generally look threatening. Before poor old Pierre could tell what was happening, he was frogmarched down the road, off to spend a night in the cells.

All in all, quite an exciting evening. I even found a pint of beer for 4,70€. Bargain…

Je voudrais une wétherspoons á Nantes, svp.
(Interestingly enough, spell-check just informed me that ‘wétherspoons’ is feminine.)

DISCLAIMER: For any worried mothers, fathers or siblings reading this, I was not in any danger at any time. I’m being sensible, honest!

Fin de Semaine.

Another week is over at school. I feel so sorry for all my teachers from secondary school now! All that time I thought they were just trying to ruin my day, they were actually trying to teach me...! I guess the clue was in their title: teachers.

A lot of the people from my classes have started to add me on Facebook, so they've all been thrown into the 'Limited Profile' section. Can't have a bunch of 15 year olds knowing too much about me. Although now they have a major advantage for their 'write-a-paragraph-about-Gavin' homework.

I wandered around the nearest supermarket today, 'Auchan'. They had live crabs and live crayfish. One particularly adventurous crayfish fell off the counter, and scuttled underneath. Clever little creature. Though he'll just die in a different place; I doubt his new-found freedom will bring longevity.

I've also just booked my Eurostar tickets to return to England over half term. They cost £180! No wonder France's economy is doing well at the moment - i'm singlehandedly keeping it going. I'm back from 24th October - 3rd November, which nicely includes Hallowe'en.

I'm not sure of this year's outfit yet, though. Hopefully something delightfully impractical. Though not racist, like last year's attempt. 'Bats' was a good idea to begin with, but in practice was just a little bit difficult. And wandering around Leamington Spa with 'blacked-up' faces was always going to be a bad idea...