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.