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.