Fimo Fire.

Evening entertainment is pretty limited in Nantes. There are the bars, of course, but neither my liver or my wallet benefit from going to bars night after night. So, myself and another assistant, Caitlin, came up with the thrilling idea of making buttons and other assorted objects from Fimo.



Fimo, for those who don't know, is a clay-like plastic-polymer, which comes in a variety of colours. We bought red, purple, glittery-blue and granite, and then started to make various things with the Fimo. I made a beer can, a guitar, an elephant, and and an assortment of buttons. Caitlin made a mermaid, rabbit, more buttons, a butterfly and a ladybird.


Here's the elephant, unicorn, hearts, buttons, mermaid, musical note and starfish, in happier times.


I was particularly happy with my replica of a beer can.

It said on the packet that we needed to bake them in the oven for 30 minutes in order for them to harden. So, sitting them on a baking tray, we slid them into Caitlin's mini-oven, turned it on, and went to sit at the kitchen table.


Caitlin puts the Fimo in the oven, mere minutes from disaster...

Barely five minutes later, I suddenly smelled smoke. Thinking they were just a little bit over-cooked, I went over to the oven to take them out. Upon opening the oven, flames leapt out and started to lick at the cupboard door, quickly filling the entire apartment with thick black smoke. We looked for a fire extinguisher, but, being France, there wasn't one. We unplugged the oven from the socket, and closed the door, hoping to starve it of oxygen and put it out. However, there was still plenty of air getting in through the vents at the side, keeping the fire steadily raging inside the oven, puffing out gallons of smoke.

By this point, Caitlin and I were hanging out of the window, trying not to breathe in the dense smoke, and gasping for air. The fire was showing no sign of getting smaller, so in one last effort before escaping, I mustered as much breath as I could, opened the oven, and blew. This actually put out the fire, while simultaneously blowing a thick cloud of sooty smoke right into my face.


The smoke slowly starting to disperse.

With the fire finally extinguished, we once again took to hanging out of the window, waiting for the smoke to disperse a bit before surveying the damage. After about ten minutes, we decided to extract the offending Fimo from the oven. Everything we'd made, everything we'd spent hours carefully crafting, was ruined. Not just over-cooked, not just burnt, but literally carbonised. We now have a variety of interestingly-shaped pieces of charred Fimo:



Next artistic endeavour? Charcoal drawing.

Trams and the Sillon.

I recently seem to have developed a rather unhealthy interest in the Nantes Trams. I've never really been a huge fan of public transport as a rule - too expensive, too unreliable, too many strange people.

Then, I moved to France, and ecountered the TAN network. Sad as it may seem, I think it may be one of the things I miss most when I leave at the end of my year abroad. The Number 98 in Horsham just doesn't quite cut the mustard, i'm afraid...

There are three tramlines in Nantes, cleverly named Line One, Two and Three. There's also Line Four, which is not actually a tram, but a 'Busway'. Basically, a bus which wasn't cool enough to be a tram, but the other trams let him play anyway.

This is the basic map of the three lines:




I live on line three, by 'Longchamp', which i've marked in red on the map (blue line, top left). One of my schools is right by the other labelled stop, 'Sillon de Bretgane'. The word 'sillon' means 'furrow' in English, and so the stop translates roughly to something romantic about ancient ploughs and sweeping farmland. In reality though, this next photo is the 'Sillon de Bretagne' - a towering montrosity of 1960s council flats, and apparently one of the least desirable places to live in Nantes.


The Sillon de Bretagne - my school's tennis courts are the red blobs on the far left of the picture.

Needless to say, I didn't take this photo. Some of my younger pupils asked if i'm taller than the Sillon, but i'm not. Honestly.

La Cigale

I don't think i've ever gone out specifically for breakfast before. It's just one of those meals which is best had in the comfort of your own home. That is, unless you happen to live in Nantes, in which there is a much better location: La Cigale.


The front entrance to the brasserie


'La Cigale' is an art-nouveau brasserie which dates from 1895. As far as I could tell from the interior, it's barely changed in the last 115 years. There are frescoes on the ceilings, extravagantly-tiled walls, and the biggest mirror i've ever seen in my life. The decor, combined with the smartly-clad waiters makes you feel as though you've just stepped into the late 1800s.


Well-dressed waiter just walking out of shot...


The word 'Cigale' is French for 'cricket', and the ornate tiles are appropriately, but subtly based around the insects. It felt a bit silly taking photos inside a restaurant, but I managed to get a few before people started to look at me strangely...



A close-up of some of the tiles that were on every single wall


The breakfast itself was pretty good. I had a croissant, a pain au chocolat, two pieces of toast (accompanied with apple compote, caramel and marmalade), coffee and freshly-squished orange juice. Delicious!

Tram Characters

So, the famous trams. I spend at least 30 minutes a day on these things, just as a basic commute. This gives me ample time to people-watch. And i've proudly come to the conclusion that there are six different types of tram-people:



The Drunk
This person, typically male, lounges across at least two seats, reeking of stale alcohol, and staring vacantly at the window. Not at the view out of the window, but the window itself, resulting in a strange, hazy expression. His pockets can often be heard clinking.

The Homeless Man
He walks down the tram, mournfully holding out a hand, earnestly asking if anyone can spare a few centimes. When people politely decline, as they invariably do, the Homeless Man moves solemnly on to the next person. Might be more effective if he didn't do it every single day. Anyway, if he spent less money on tram tickets/fines, and more on housing, he'd probably be a bit better off.

The Pushchair-wielding Mother
Yes, you have a pushchair twice the width of the aisle. No, it most definitely won't fit. Oh, you're going to try anyway? That was my foot.

The Old Lady with Shopping
She gets on at Orvault-Morliere, with more shopping bags than she can sensibly expect to carry. As the tram corners just before Bignon, the bags topple over, unleashing an array of conveniently circular groceries onto the tram floor. Old-Lady-with-Shopping then proceeds to gather up the escapee vegetables, tins and bottles from the floor, and puts them back into her bag just in time for her stop, Plaisance.

The Teenager with Music
This young man is on every single tram, on every single line, all day, every day. His mobile phone has some microscopic speaker which is capable of blaring out music at an surprisingly loud, yet low-quality level. He somehow remains completely oblivious to the fact that his pocket is making such a horrendous noise and defiantly out-stares anyone who even thinks about making eye-contact with him.

The First-time Tram-ers
This is a couple who quite possibly live in a little village near Nantes. They are therefore completely befuddled by anything remotely tram-related. This unfortunately includes doors, tickets, seats, holding-on, getting-off. For this reason, the First-time Trammers often get off at the wrong stop, after falling over, losing their ticket and puzzling over the tram map. Even then, they can't open the door.

Day in Angers

In 845, the Vikings invaded Angers.
In 1204 Angers was conquered by King Philippe II.
In 1585, the Huguenots invaded.

Then, more importantly, in 2010, Angers was invaded by three assistants from Nantes. One of whom was so enthusiastic that she convinced us to get the 09h55 train. On a Saturday! Grr.

It took just over half an hour to get there on the TGV, which is pretty reasonable. Google maps kindly informs me that it would have taken 19 hours to walk. The enthusiastic assistant had already thoroughly researched the town, and had made a military-style itinerary of the day's events.

We started off with a walk around the town centre, and crossed the River Maine. The view on the postcards in the shops looked spectacular, with a sweeping panorama of castles, churches and luxuriously green trees, bathed in rich sunshine. In reality, it was not quite so picturesque, due to it being winter, cold, half-cloudy, and a huge tarpaulin covering most of the castle.



For lunch, we had galettes at a creperie. I don't think i've mentioned these galettes yet, so i'll explain. They're a traditional Breton food - 'Breton' being from Brittany, the region of France where Nantes used to be. Basically, it's like a savoury crepe, which typically contains ham, cheese and an egg, but you can choose pretty much anything you want to go in them. Here's a photo of one:



For my dessert, I had three different kinds of sorbet - lime, passionfruit and Cointreau. The latter comes from Angers, so it felt appropriate to try some while I was there.

In the afternoon, we wandered down to the Collegiate Church of Saint Martin, which is the oldest church in Angers. It doesn't sound like much of an accolade, but there must've been well over 50 churches in the town. The foundations of the Collegiate church dated from the fifth century, with every layer above being built a few centuries later. Lazy French builders, I reckon. Click on photo for a better view.



Later on we went to visit the castle. It's an fairly imposing example of a castle, and is seen by guidebooks as the first of the proper 'Loire Valley Chateaux'. It houses the 'world's longest' tapestry - or the 'Apocalypse', as they call it. It's basically a cartoon strip of the book of revelations, but with a liberal helping of seven-headed dragons. I'm no biblical expert, but i'm sure dragons are fairly limited within its pages. We weren't allowed to take photos of the tapestry. I think this is partly because the flash would spoil the fabric, and partly because people would then expose it for the con it actually is. Longest tapestry, maybe. But, they'd chopped it up into sections which were a maximum of 30 feet long. There must be some tapestry-world loophole regarding cutting them up that I don't know about.


Slightly disconcerting sign - 'Apocalypse, this way'

The castle had some impressive gardens too, and the view from the top of the tower was suitably panoramic. it was trying to snow while we were on the tower, so it was perishing cold. My cold, shivering hands tried to take many photos, but swiftly decided to retreat into my pockets before frostbite settled in.

The gardens:


Freezing-cold view from the castle across the river and, unfortunately, dual-carraigeway. French town-planning doesn't take into account nice views, apparently:



The last two photos aren't entirely relevant, but I quite liked them. One is typically French, one is typically English. I wish i'd been able to get them in the same photo, but i'm not sure that 2CV drivers take kindly to being asked to pose in front of 'phone boxes. Still, here they are: