Another week has passed here in Le Mans and I honestly cannot tell you where the time has gone. It’s now only two weeks until we have 12 days off for ‘toussaints’ (all saints holiday) when I’m popping back to the UK for 4 days to see my family and Pete (YAY) and then for the rest of it I’m planning on travelling around (haven’t decided where yet!). Again, it’s been a crazy week and I love the lifestyle I’m living: Student finance loans, Erasmus grants, salaries, 12 hour weeks and APL benefit allowance all add up and allow me to be doing the things that I’m writing about, plus the weather has been amazing this week...This is the life!
The first half of the week consisted of mainly sorting out the nightmare pile of French paperwork which needed filling in. I know I keep going on about the amount of documents and signatures and that are required but it really is a notable comparison to what I’m used to in England. You spend your time going around in circles, one person telling you to do one thing, another person telling you that the other person was wrong and that you should do this, only to be told that when you eventually hand in the papers, it will take an age to go through! It’s quite tiring and apparently you only get your ‘carte vitale’ just before leaving France in April. Sacré Bleu! But enough is enough on this topic; I’d like to hope I’m over the worst now so all I can do is wait...
This week I also discovered that Le Mans isn’t half bad for clothes shopping. We have a shopping centre called ‘Centre Jacobins’ near the Old town, amongst all the winding streets, as well as a handful of shops just off the main square. You have a couple of English/international classics- H&M and Zara, a few French masterpieces: Gallerie Lafeyette, Monoprix, FNAC and then little boutique shops such as Belle Hélène (introduced to me by my housemate Vanessa for shoes) which proves to be extremely cheap. Then of course you can’t forget about the 2 euro shop. Wow!
On Wednesday 6th October, all of the secondary school assistants attended the Nantes induction day which actually proved to clear up quite a lot of queries. So getting up at 5.45am wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it definitely could have done with starting a tad later and also being at end of September instead of a week and a half after arriving! But it was a great way to meet other assistants and it was comforting that everyone had the same worries. We also got taught the best ways to lesson plan, what a good lesson is and what to avoid. We also got given a pack of teaching materials to give us a head start along with tips on how to deal with difficult kids. I’m hoping that I don’t have to use them...
I also realized how much more I love French food than I do English. They have pasta bars here and you know how I love pasta...You can get a box of the great stuff for just €6’s and its scrumptious. I also LOVE cheese, bread and wine- so this is the perfect country for me! The majority of the restaurants are cheap also- they have a €10 offer going on for 2 courses and a drink and other slightly higher class restaurants offer a four course meal for around €17. Annie, Louise and I ate lunch on Friday in the sunshine at La Bourse on La Place de la Republique and enjoyed our huge baguettes a lot despite the waiter refusing to speak French back to us no matter how many times we still spoke French...
As per usual, I shall finish this post with a list of random/exciting things that I also wanted to tell you but which didn’t really fit in above:
· I got my first French cold which made me feel pretty ill for a couple of days...
· One morning at a ridiculous hour, I poured apple juice into my cereal (obviously whilst I had that stupid cold) HILARIOUS.
· Louise and I bought 10 dvd’s from FNAC for a mere €50, so we have a mini library already
· We got stressed out at Radio Taxi’s for being 15 minutes late at 6.30 in the morning and even angrier when Mr Taxi driver blamed us for it!
· I cooked Alice and Vanessa spaghetti Bolognese which was delicious!
· And I finally met my flat mate Casey from Maine in America.
Of course in between the wonderful things I write about above, I spend the odd hour or two feeling homesick, it can’t be helped! I miss Pedro, my mum, dad and sister, my friends and some home comforts but then I think about the amazing time I’m having here and it disappears. Everyone will still be there waiting for me when I get back ey?!
I best dash; I need to plan my weekend trip to a German Christmas Market...
À bientot xxxxx
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