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!

Marseille

Holidays =travelling = good.

Marseille seems like a pretty nice place, the architecture is really pretty here. Most of the streets in the centre of town are lined with tall buildings with shuttered windows and over the top iron railings. It's all very French, and a bit Italian at the same time.

Yesterday we went to Monaco, which has to be seen to be believed. It really is tiny, but is totally jam packed with tall 70s apartment blocks, clustered around a few ports equally crammed with expensive private yachts. The shopping streets had citrus fruit trees, which seemed pretty strange to me. They also had public lifts and escalators all over the place. The shops themselves were interesting too, all selling mostly highly decorative things, most of which were useless. We did come across a shop selling lots of very unusual and decorative kitchen stuff, which was all very colourful and expensive. There's a similar shop in York called Octopus, as far as I can remember.

Monaco is very difficult to navigate, despite the size. Firstly because of the different levels and secondly because of the amount of space. Pedestrians aren't really that welcome. When you leave the station you are left wondering how to get onto the path. And while I'm thinking about leaving the station...the first thing we saw was an incredibly polished ice cream shop. The place was beautiful, selling ice cream and frozen yogurt in transparent plastic cones, topped with fruit. Irresistable. So we didn't.

I had a great time walking around the grand prix circuit and getting enthusiastic about red and white kerbstones, and I was alone in this. Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun to see those famous places, to walk round THAT hairpin and walk through THAT tunnel.

In Marseille so far I've seen the old port, the Quick (which isn't half bad) and the Palais du Pharo, which offers a lovely view of the town. Also visited the touristy sweet shop - again beautiful - and a nice market by the port. I have also spent a while negotiating the public transport system. On my first day, I bought a transport ticket, which didn't work. So, we went to the office - on Monday as it was shut before that - to get a refund. This involved filling out a form, when we eventually convinced the person working there that we deserved a refund. This is pretty amazing for just a refund for ten Euros. Also spent an hour in a queue trying to buy a train ticket. Monaco was worth seeing when we eventually got there, though!

The admin begins...

It has been a very busy weekend for me. First of all my first information pack arrived from my Académie in France (which corresponds roughly to our Local Education Authorities), along with a few forms to be filled in. In addition, the British Council sent a lot of stuff through for me to read, and finally, the head of English in my French school sent me a lovely email.

The stuff from the Académie was very simple, there was one form to return, a "coupon réponse", confirming my intent to take up my post on the first of October. They also included a lot of helpful reading material, which gives details of the average school week in France, the scheduling of their school holidays and other useful information. I also had to return a form (in English this time) to the British Council, to the same effect as the French one.

I think I've been very lucky to be placed in this Académie, as they have been very quick off the mark with letting me know my exact post, and getting in contact. As far as I know none of my friends in other regions have been quite so lucky.

Finally, I was advised by the British Council to write to my head of school (le Proviseur for a Lycée) and also the head of English there, who had already emailed me, so all that admin will be sent off tomorrow.