Christmas Markets

I got a letter last week from the nice train people in Marseille. They thanked me for my refund request of a while ago and are assuring me they're looking into the problem. It's taken long enough!

Yesterday I went on a trip with the other English assistant to Colmar and Kaysersberg in Alsace. We set off early in the morning catching the train to Colmar, hoping to get to Kaysersberg early enough to spend the morning there. Unfortunately, there was a lack of buses between 8 and 11am, meaning that we ended up starting our day in Colmar instead. We had a quick look around the markets, and did some souvenir shopping.

We got the bus to Kaysersberg at about 11, reaching Kaysersberg half an hour later, after a nice trip though the vineyards of the Lower Vosges. Kaysersberg is a beautiful little place, full of gingerbread houses and meandering streets. The atmosphere was amazing, with everyone wandering around wearing santa hats and clutching mugs of steaming mulled wine. Someone even had a bubblemaker spitting soapbubbles into the streets. There was a lot of street entertainment too, ranging from a white Charlie Chaplin style living statue, who enchanted all the passing children, to the obligatory old lady playing the accordion.

The cold added to the general festivity, as everyone huddled together around the market stalls or tried to jam into the already-full restaurants. We needed the hot wine to keep us feeling warm in the street, the only heat coming from the occasional shop we went into, mostly for the heat, too. I came across a shop selling minatures of every liqueur imaginable, including one made from spiced bread - an Alsace tradition - and found some good Christmas gifts.

On the way back from Kaysersberg we bumped into three of the other assistants on their way to Colmar too, so we all wandered around together, taking in most of the markets. As everyone knows, the best thing about Christmas markets is the food, so we made the most of the free samples and got some hotdogs with sauerkraut.

The place was packed, and as the Christmas lights came on we headed home again, to get warm!

This Friday was the Christmas meal for all the teachers working with the assistants. We went to a Moroccan restaurant...for five hours. This is pretty short for French meal standards, and we had a good time chatting. I had meatballs and couscous, followed by ice cream. Not the most Moroccan thing I could have chosen, but very nice all the same. The meal was accompanied by delicious Moroccan bread, which reminded me somewhat of the stotties back home, but darker in colour and slightly spicy.

The terminales and I are getting on quite well now, and they worked hard on their presentations, so we're having a fun week this week, with minimal writing down of things. I asked each Thursday class what they wanted to do, and they all agreed to learn some Scottish country dancing from me, which I'm hardly qualified to teach, but at least they'll be bouncing about in the right general direction to some music they've not heard before. I'm really looking forward to Thursday!

Assistants on Ice - Again

The weekend before last was good fun. Three of us went to the ice rink and stayed for the full three hours. Suitably exhausted we came home and they cooked Indian food for me. They were covered in bruises by the end of the skating, but I escaped with only a giant blister on the back of my heel. Last Tuesday, after discovering my Russian class wasn't where it was supposed to be (again) I bought some plasters for the blister on the way home. These are the most confusing plasters in the world, as they are one side adhesive, one side non-adhesive. I'm supposed to put glue on open wounds or glue the plaster to my sock? That's five Euros I'm not going to see again.

Last Tuesday wasn't a good day. Before the Russian and plaster silliness, I endured teaching a class about the UK - while being corrected by the teacher. Except what she was saying wasn't right. This happens every so often to most of the assistants, and it's very frustrating. It doesn't make any sense to hire someone from a place for their cultural input and then refute half of what they say. But there it is, it happens to everyone.

On Wednesday things improved considerably as I went to the Christmas Market in a town close by. It was fantastic! All the little huts were all over the town square and down the streets leading from it. Even better, most of the food stalls had free samples. I just wanted to walk round and round tasting everything for free, but I did end up buying some Guignolet which is a very sweet wild cherry drink, totally delicious.

Also had a hot chocolate from this stallholder. The photo doesn't show how delicious everything looked, but it gives you an idea. The fondues on the right reminded me of Chocolate Soup in Edinburgh, and you can imagine how good the place smelt. One of the best things about France is that you can find good chocolate everywhere, and if you're lucky, a jolly bearded man (not Santa) to serve it to you. This guy was all too happy to let me photograph his stall, as long as he could take centre stage. The hat says it all, really. Along with the "I've got a chocolate shop, aren't I lucky?" grin.

As far as teaching is concerned, the terminales are really starting to pick up. Last Thursday and today were the days of preparation for their presentations, and they all seemed to be working really hard on them, asking me lots of questions about grammar and vocabulary. I'm really looking forward to this Thursday when we'll watch their presentations and evaluate them.

Last weekend was cinema - one free entry to the film festival to see "On appelle ça... le printemps" introduced by the director. We'd got the ticket having no idea what the film would be about, but it turned out to be not too bad at all, though I only understood some of the jokes.

On Saturday we went bowling and took lots of silly action shot pictures, and on the way home spotted a 3 for 2 offer in a patisserie....who can resist that? Especially when they're in a group of three. So we all ate a little Forêt Noire
which was delicious!

It has been a good week for post, too. So far I've had two postcards from friends and a wonderful parcel from home containing Cheddar (hooray! real cheese!) and my advent calendar. All I'm waiting for now are my bills...