Montpellier
We had a very early start. Too early for my liking! I walked to the fountain at 6.30 am still feeling half asleep to meet Grace and Liz at 6.40. Grace was late as usual so I was slightly panicking that we’d miss the train. Grace’s watch is late and my watch is early we’re always blaming each other for having the wrong time. It’s only since being here and around Grace and liz’s calm attitude to every thing that I’ve realised that I’m actually a bit neurotic and worry about small things. Big things I’m still quite laid back about, which doesn’t really make sense. So we carted our over packed to the brim bags up the hill towards the station, where Hannah would be waiting for us. Hannah, Liz and I decided to bring our guitars with us. The laundrettes on tour! Since playing the guitar in the laundrette, we discovered that one of the photos I took looks like a video shoot so ‘laundrettes’ seemed like a suitable name. So far we only really have one song under the belt! Wagon wheel!
Right enough rambling. Our train to Paris was 7.10. Thankfully we didn’t miss. We all sat there falling asleep to our ipods for two hours until we arrived in Paris. We bought a carnet and jumped on the metro to on other metro stop to get the train that would take 4 hours to our destination: Montpellier. So after a pretty non eventful journey we tried to find Laura, who had said she’d meet us at the station. While waiting for her to arrive where she said she’d come and find us, we had an American and Irish teaching assistances ask us what we were near and where we’d recommend seeing in Montpellier. We explained that we had no idea but our friend who lives hear would be along any minute. Laura arrived looking summery as ever. It was quite a warm day but as usual all the French were dressed up as though it was the middle of winter, scarves, coats the whole nine yards. That’s one thing English in us that will never change. When there’s sun, you take advantage of it and strip off! We sun cream of course. Laura helped our new friends out with directions and we were on our way.
The walk to Laura’s seemed like forever! Most probably because we were carting guitars, the same bags we had taken to Rouen to last us 3 months and almost as many clothes.
We dropped our bags off at Laura’s house and were assigned our beds. I slept in Laura’s gigantic bed with her, which I’m sure she regretted when the next day she told me I was almost on top of her in the middle of the night. Sorry Laura! Hannah, Grace and Liz were in the living room on the sofas which were actually more like beds. So we unpacked a little and then decided to take advantage of the glorious sun! This day was mostly spent in café’s we went grocery shopping to. It was really nice to live like tourists. It’s funny we all didn’t mind standing out as English at all but in Rouen we want to seem French or at least fit in a bit.
Right so Grace and Liz in the hopes of losing weight and de-toxing decided to live on a diet of grapes and rice for a week. The rules were quite strange so because they allowed them selves any drinks so for instance we’d be in a café giving hot chocolate and Grace would put the chocolate on the side into her drink and be like ‘I’m not breaking the rules!’ They also allowed themselves soya source on the rice. They did brilliantly though and didn’t break it once even when feeling weak and tired.
Laura, Hannah and I went all out in the supermarket but were still healthy. Strangely enough if split the bill we only ended up spending a little more than them. I guess juices and rice are expensive.
Laura had arranged for us to go over to a gathering of an assistant teacher friend of hers. This was very enjoyable if not a little surreal. I kept saying I didn’t know what country I was in. All of a sudden there were English, Scottish, Australians, Americans, New Zealanders, in the room. Other than visitors, the only English people I’ve spoke to for 9 weeks has been Grace, Liz and Hannah. After asking lots of questions about being a teaching assistant, talking to the Amercan’s about America and being at summer camp, explaining our degree and what we were doing here, we all went out to an Australian bar/club.
Wednesday
We’d looked at the weather fore cast before coming and according to the weather man this was to be the hottest day of the week so….we decided to go to the beach! Laura’s friend from Nottingham is doing teaching assistant year in Lisle and she came to see Laura and Montpellier and brought 7 friends with her. The night before we’d arranged to meet at 10 Oclock the next day and cycle to the beach. We all rented bikes for a bargain price of 2 euros and Laura lead the way to beach. We began cycling along the tracks of tram line, which seemed like a good idea until a tram was heading at us from both directions and in a panic, Grace got her bike caught in the tracks! It took 1 hour and ½ in total to get there. While it seemed warm on the way there as we were exercising so the wind didn’t bother us, when we actually go there and were lying on the beach, we were freezing! At first Grace and Laura’s friend Lauren were hopeful and had their bikinis on but soon our jumpers and scarves weren’t enough to protect us from the cold so we decided to go in the one of the cafes’ near by for some hot chocolate but…they didn’t have any left! So I had tea. Soon after this we all climbed back on to our bikes and prepared our selves for the long journey home. It was actually sunny again! It was just really cold as we were by the sea. We arrived home at about 6, quickly had showers and then Hannah, Laura and I went out to meet Lauren and her friends at a fondu restaurant. Grace and Liz couldn’t come because the chances of there being grapes and rice there were quite slim and it would be too much torture watching us eat yummy cheese. Speaking of which I was set the challenge of giving us cheese for a week as I’m so addicted it. When there was mention of going to a fondu restaurant, I decided to take on the challenge next week when away from temptation.
The restaurant was great! A pot of hot cheese, brad to dip in it, Potato to dip in it: heaven! Also the wine was given to us in baby’s bottles, which was cool but strange! It affected us bizarrely quickly. In the deal was also an aperitif and ice cream for dessert. It was 17 euros and worth cent. We went on to a pub after this. I was feeling full all night!
Thursay
Rain rain go way! We didn’t leave the house. It did not stop raining. We watched sex and the city and random things on U tube. Laura has the internet at the house which is a bit novelty!
Friday
The weather was still pretty miserable but we wanted to get out the house. So we went shopping. We also did some more sitting in cafes acting French. We rented a film that evening called Paris je t’aime. It had 18 different stories put together, each with a different director. Tres bien
Saturday
Today was to be the only other day with ok weather so originally we watched to cycle to the beach again. When stepping outside, towels in hand the weather was not so promising. We decided to rent bikes anyway and rode to the river for a picnic. Grace stripped off into her bikini again and we got ‘Crazy girls!’ looks from passers by. That evening we watched another French film. This one was about Erasmus students in Barcelona. The English character didn’t not come across so well or represent us well as she cheated on her boyfriend and had a rude and offensive, drunk for a brother. It was a good film though.
Sunday
I thought it was about time we had some culture so persuaded everyone to go to the art gallery in the museum. Most of the paintings were from the 16th century. I did quite a lot of analysing and deconstructing which sentences like there’s a skull in this painting, I think the artist is hinting at death. Stating the obvious just a little. I enjoyed the exhibition and did get a lot out of it.
Monday
Last day. Laura was the perfect hostess all week, I forgot to say. Always cooking us lovely meals and the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had in my life! We were going to rent bikes again but decided against it as we were all pretty tired. Instead we had a picnic on some grass about 5 minutes from the river. Liz and I brought our guitars. We were all a large area of grass but some reason these 3 little children decided to play ball right next to us. After a while we realised it was being they wanted attention. First of all they asked us to take a photo, then they wanted to play our guitars to which Laura quickly said no and then they ran over to they’re bikes brought out a guitar and the oldest girl who was about 11, decided to show us up and started playing guitar a lot better than us. It began to feel like a competition. At this point they were so close they were almost on top of us. They were dropping English singer names left right and centre. They were quite sweet actually if not a little annoying. Near by there was what looked like man and his girl friend? He was juggling away trying to wow the crowd but our little fans were having none of it had their eyes fixed on us!
That evening we went out to a Japanese restaurant with Laura’s friend Christine, an American exchange student. It was lovely. Grace and Liz had finished their diet too so they could finally eat!
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
Monday, 14 April 2008
30 March onwards
Yeah I’ve got bit behind on my blog as I’ve been busy and then forget things. Here’s what I wrote last week. Sorry mum I haven’t written properly about your time here yet but it was lovely having you and dad come and visit and you know my friends adored your dancing! Just to jump ahead abit, yeas for the past week I’ve been on holiday from art school and tomorrow Monpellia! I’ll write soon properly.
Sunday
Well I didn’t do much. I went for a walk along the riverside and contemplated going up the big hill but changed my mind when I got there.
Monday painting painting painting! Grace had told me the clocks were going had gone forward the day before and told me to tell the others but I forgot and subsequently when I told Liz and Hannah the next day, they felt like they’d lost an hour of their life. Liz thought she was turning up early to paint and she wasn’t. It’s all my fault! For no reason in particular we all decided to go to the supermarket and buy red wine, grapes, bread, and 4 differernt types of cheeses. This is the life. Feeling very French, we went back to Graces to begin our session of endless amounts eating and afternoon drinking. We watched the film ‘the wedding crashers’.
We left at around 7.30 feeling a little tipsy and surprised at how light it was outside. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because the clocks went forward… Later on that evening we decided to go to O’kalloghans just because it was so light out still, it didn’t feel right staying in. We didn’t drink though. I ordered a coke but they’d run out!!!!! So I had an Orangina. There was a singer in there playing typical bar songs, like Amy Winehouse, Oasis and such like. It was really funny because he was sitting at the bar, facing the bar so we didn’t see his face all night. I guess he had stage fright. There was only about 10 people in the bar anyway so we felt a bit rude leaving when we did. We were tired a feeling the effects of stuffing our faces with wine and cheese though.
I went in to the art school pretty early and finished my painting…I think. I might go back to it. I got a call from Grace asking if I want to go out to café Cheri so I packed up and went to meet her. I got the usual- hot chocolate. After an hour or so in there I was feeling pretty stuffy so I decided to go for a little walk which ended up being a 2 hour walk. I decided to cross the bridge! Crossing the bridge seems like coming to the edge of the world or something. My side of the bridge is like this protected little world, like in the trueman show. I’d been across a few times before, once for the punk concert and once for the comedy show at the Scottish pub but I’d never been in the day and I’d never been alone! It turns out there’s loads more shops over there, a market and another cathedral. After all that walking I was exhausted so I stopped off at Hannah’s on the way back and borrowed a film.
Tuesday
Liz and I painted in the studio. Not too sure what Hannah and Grace were up to. We were supposed to meet Patricia at around 5-6 to go to an exhibition where students from beaux art were collaborating with another art school. Patricia didn’t turn up until about 6.30 to pick us up. So while we were waiting outside, Grace went into a little shop to guy a card and made the mistake of saying ‘saluuuuut!’ to the old woman behind the counter who quickly corrected her rude French by replying ‘Bonjour mademoiselle…’. She’s just too friendly! The other day we were in virgin and she said ‘tu’ instead of ‘vous’ to the man behind the counter. He kept looking at us strangely as if we’d just come on to him or something and then he said ‘you know….you only say ‘tu’ to close friends and family? Whoops! She’ll remember one day….
The exhibition was pretty cramp. The first thing we saw when we walked in was performance art where a woman originally dressed in white, was stood on a table and people were encouraged to through paint on her while she recited some French I didn’t understand. I’m not sure the reason behind this. We walked on and there was an installation of a 1940’s room. We think the theme was disturbance as the phone was left of the hook and the person who ‘lived’ there seemed to be in the middle of a cross word. Other things in the exhibition included a few paintings, a video montage of films clips placed on a loop to change the meaning.
We’d driven outside of Rouen to get to this exhibition and it was right next to Patricia’s
parents house so she decided to go in while we were at the exhibition. She said she’d drive us home or if we found someone to get a lift off, to go on without her. The truth of the matter was we were ready to go home after about half an hour and didn’t really want to go up to someone and say bonsoir avez vous un voiture? Hint hint not so subtly. So, we decided to walk. We new the vague direction and we just thought we’d follow directions. It would have been a 1 hour walk maybe but we only got half way when we noticed a car beeping and eventually stopping. It was Patricia. She said she’d been asking everyone at the exhibition where we were and was so shocked to see that we’d walked. Everyone here’s lazy and drives everywhere even if it’s a 5 minute walk. Anyway we jumped in the car and wre greatful of thr lift as it had started to rain.
We met up with Quintin aka Mika, well we’ve changed his name to Mika and Charlie again. They brought a friend called … and we all went to the opening night of a new bar. The bar was really unusual looking with purple stripes on the walls and mirror circular tables. The drinks were pretty expensive, for France so we moved on quite soon. Because we went to the bar before dinner and I hadn’t really eaten any lunch, I felt a bit drunk on my 1 glass of wine. I more than made up for my lack of eating at this restaurant. We went to a Fondu restaurant but the vegetarian option of fondu had cider in it and if I have one drop of cider I’m sick for a week. Instead I had this cheese potato bake thing in a casserole dish which looked like a meal for three. As if this wasn’t enough, they gave me a side salad too. I was full. After stuffing ourselves to the max, we all jumped in Mika’s car and he drove us too Grace’s house to play some music. Mika brought his electric guitar again and also his Ukulele which I had a go on. So much fun!
Wednesday
Went into the studio for another day of painting.
Thursday
For some reason I got it into my head that my parents were arriving today. It might be because Hannahs parents were arriving, I’m not sure but anyway I turned up at the station to pick them up and they were no where to be seen. I just happened to run out of credit on my engish phone just as I needed it too! It always seems to be the way! So about an hour later I realised I’d got the wrong day and they were coming the next day…. Whoops! Well done Mary…
So I kind of wasted the whole afternoon hanging around, getting credit on the net. It was a gorgeous day so I walked to Liz’s had some tea, played guitar and headed back into town to meet everyone. That evening we went out for a meal with Mika, Christophe, Charlie, and two new people called Laura and Timothe. We went to a delicious pizza place with typically French pizza toppings like camembert and emmental. I can’t keep living like this! It’s too expensive! Mika says he goes out for meals about 3 nights a week. I suppose their tuition fee here is only 400 euro so they can afford it.
Frdiay
Right second time lucky! I turned up at the station at 2 o clock and there my parents were, the day they said they would be. I went over and hugged them and escorted them out the station towards my house. We were heading up Grace’s road to get to my apartment, when we ran into Hannah, her mum and sister. We stopped for a little chat, carried on walking until who should pop her head out the window, Grace! She shouted down to us for a few minutes then we said we’d see her soon and walked on. A few minutes later we were finally in my lovely apartment. My parents seemed impressed. They hadn’t eaten all day so I gave them some French bread, cheeses, grapes and red wine, which my mum managed to spill all over Celils yellow through. Like mother like daughter.
About an hour later I decided to take them into the art school as this would be the last day they could see it because of the holidays coming up. On the way just as we were passing the fountain we ran into Liz. 3 in one day! She was waiting to meet Grace and they were going to see a French band with love called BB Brune at Mika’s university ball. I only know one song which feature the only words ‘dis moi!’. We arrived at the art school where I showed them my space and such like and then we went for a drink at a local café. We stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some food and wine and returned home to get changed. My dad thought it was stuffy and suggested I opened the window so I did so and a few minutes later my mum fluffed down on the day where the open window was. The next thing we knew she was gasping in excruciating pain and blood was poring from her head! My dad was shouting get some tissue he said later that his heart was beating so fast. Thank god her head stopped bleeding pretty soon and it wasn’t fatal! Mum always hurts herself on holiday whether it’s a jelly fish sting or a twisted ankle, there’s always drama.
When we’d run into Hannah and family earlier we’d arranged to out for meal with them. We met at the church near the art school and I decided to take them to the same restaurant we’d gone to a few nights before.
Had a brilliant night out in a pub called saxo. Live music and everyone got up and started dancing. My parents leading the way!
Yeah I’ve got bit behind on my blog as I’ve been busy and then forget things. Here’s what I wrote last week. Sorry mum I haven’t written properly about your time here yet but it was lovely having you and dad come and visit and you know my friends adored your dancing! Just to jump ahead abit, yeas for the past week I’ve been on holiday from art school and tomorrow Monpellia! I’ll write soon properly.
Sunday
Well I didn’t do much. I went for a walk along the riverside and contemplated going up the big hill but changed my mind when I got there.
Monday painting painting painting! Grace had told me the clocks were going had gone forward the day before and told me to tell the others but I forgot and subsequently when I told Liz and Hannah the next day, they felt like they’d lost an hour of their life. Liz thought she was turning up early to paint and she wasn’t. It’s all my fault! For no reason in particular we all decided to go to the supermarket and buy red wine, grapes, bread, and 4 differernt types of cheeses. This is the life. Feeling very French, we went back to Graces to begin our session of endless amounts eating and afternoon drinking. We watched the film ‘the wedding crashers’.
We left at around 7.30 feeling a little tipsy and surprised at how light it was outside. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s because the clocks went forward… Later on that evening we decided to go to O’kalloghans just because it was so light out still, it didn’t feel right staying in. We didn’t drink though. I ordered a coke but they’d run out!!!!! So I had an Orangina. There was a singer in there playing typical bar songs, like Amy Winehouse, Oasis and such like. It was really funny because he was sitting at the bar, facing the bar so we didn’t see his face all night. I guess he had stage fright. There was only about 10 people in the bar anyway so we felt a bit rude leaving when we did. We were tired a feeling the effects of stuffing our faces with wine and cheese though.
I went in to the art school pretty early and finished my painting…I think. I might go back to it. I got a call from Grace asking if I want to go out to café Cheri so I packed up and went to meet her. I got the usual- hot chocolate. After an hour or so in there I was feeling pretty stuffy so I decided to go for a little walk which ended up being a 2 hour walk. I decided to cross the bridge! Crossing the bridge seems like coming to the edge of the world or something. My side of the bridge is like this protected little world, like in the trueman show. I’d been across a few times before, once for the punk concert and once for the comedy show at the Scottish pub but I’d never been in the day and I’d never been alone! It turns out there’s loads more shops over there, a market and another cathedral. After all that walking I was exhausted so I stopped off at Hannah’s on the way back and borrowed a film.
Tuesday
Liz and I painted in the studio. Not too sure what Hannah and Grace were up to. We were supposed to meet Patricia at around 5-6 to go to an exhibition where students from beaux art were collaborating with another art school. Patricia didn’t turn up until about 6.30 to pick us up. So while we were waiting outside, Grace went into a little shop to guy a card and made the mistake of saying ‘saluuuuut!’ to the old woman behind the counter who quickly corrected her rude French by replying ‘Bonjour mademoiselle…’. She’s just too friendly! The other day we were in virgin and she said ‘tu’ instead of ‘vous’ to the man behind the counter. He kept looking at us strangely as if we’d just come on to him or something and then he said ‘you know….you only say ‘tu’ to close friends and family? Whoops! She’ll remember one day….
The exhibition was pretty cramp. The first thing we saw when we walked in was performance art where a woman originally dressed in white, was stood on a table and people were encouraged to through paint on her while she recited some French I didn’t understand. I’m not sure the reason behind this. We walked on and there was an installation of a 1940’s room. We think the theme was disturbance as the phone was left of the hook and the person who ‘lived’ there seemed to be in the middle of a cross word. Other things in the exhibition included a few paintings, a video montage of films clips placed on a loop to change the meaning.
We’d driven outside of Rouen to get to this exhibition and it was right next to Patricia’s
parents house so she decided to go in while we were at the exhibition. She said she’d drive us home or if we found someone to get a lift off, to go on without her. The truth of the matter was we were ready to go home after about half an hour and didn’t really want to go up to someone and say bonsoir avez vous un voiture? Hint hint not so subtly. So, we decided to walk. We new the vague direction and we just thought we’d follow directions. It would have been a 1 hour walk maybe but we only got half way when we noticed a car beeping and eventually stopping. It was Patricia. She said she’d been asking everyone at the exhibition where we were and was so shocked to see that we’d walked. Everyone here’s lazy and drives everywhere even if it’s a 5 minute walk. Anyway we jumped in the car and wre greatful of thr lift as it had started to rain.
We met up with Quintin aka Mika, well we’ve changed his name to Mika and Charlie again. They brought a friend called … and we all went to the opening night of a new bar. The bar was really unusual looking with purple stripes on the walls and mirror circular tables. The drinks were pretty expensive, for France so we moved on quite soon. Because we went to the bar before dinner and I hadn’t really eaten any lunch, I felt a bit drunk on my 1 glass of wine. I more than made up for my lack of eating at this restaurant. We went to a Fondu restaurant but the vegetarian option of fondu had cider in it and if I have one drop of cider I’m sick for a week. Instead I had this cheese potato bake thing in a casserole dish which looked like a meal for three. As if this wasn’t enough, they gave me a side salad too. I was full. After stuffing ourselves to the max, we all jumped in Mika’s car and he drove us too Grace’s house to play some music. Mika brought his electric guitar again and also his Ukulele which I had a go on. So much fun!
Wednesday
Went into the studio for another day of painting.
Thursday
For some reason I got it into my head that my parents were arriving today. It might be because Hannahs parents were arriving, I’m not sure but anyway I turned up at the station to pick them up and they were no where to be seen. I just happened to run out of credit on my engish phone just as I needed it too! It always seems to be the way! So about an hour later I realised I’d got the wrong day and they were coming the next day…. Whoops! Well done Mary…
So I kind of wasted the whole afternoon hanging around, getting credit on the net. It was a gorgeous day so I walked to Liz’s had some tea, played guitar and headed back into town to meet everyone. That evening we went out for a meal with Mika, Christophe, Charlie, and two new people called Laura and Timothe. We went to a delicious pizza place with typically French pizza toppings like camembert and emmental. I can’t keep living like this! It’s too expensive! Mika says he goes out for meals about 3 nights a week. I suppose their tuition fee here is only 400 euro so they can afford it.
Frdiay
Right second time lucky! I turned up at the station at 2 o clock and there my parents were, the day they said they would be. I went over and hugged them and escorted them out the station towards my house. We were heading up Grace’s road to get to my apartment, when we ran into Hannah, her mum and sister. We stopped for a little chat, carried on walking until who should pop her head out the window, Grace! She shouted down to us for a few minutes then we said we’d see her soon and walked on. A few minutes later we were finally in my lovely apartment. My parents seemed impressed. They hadn’t eaten all day so I gave them some French bread, cheeses, grapes and red wine, which my mum managed to spill all over Celils yellow through. Like mother like daughter.
About an hour later I decided to take them into the art school as this would be the last day they could see it because of the holidays coming up. On the way just as we were passing the fountain we ran into Liz. 3 in one day! She was waiting to meet Grace and they were going to see a French band with love called BB Brune at Mika’s university ball. I only know one song which feature the only words ‘dis moi!’. We arrived at the art school where I showed them my space and such like and then we went for a drink at a local café. We stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some food and wine and returned home to get changed. My dad thought it was stuffy and suggested I opened the window so I did so and a few minutes later my mum fluffed down on the day where the open window was. The next thing we knew she was gasping in excruciating pain and blood was poring from her head! My dad was shouting get some tissue he said later that his heart was beating so fast. Thank god her head stopped bleeding pretty soon and it wasn’t fatal! Mum always hurts herself on holiday whether it’s a jelly fish sting or a twisted ankle, there’s always drama.
When we’d run into Hannah and family earlier we’d arranged to out for meal with them. We met at the church near the art school and I decided to take them to the same restaurant we’d gone to a few nights before.
Had a brilliant night out in a pub called saxo. Live music and everyone got up and started dancing. My parents leading the way!
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
23rd March onwards
Sunday
I’m ashamed to say I did not leave the house. I was looking through my diary and only realised it was Easter half way through the day. There’s not really much publicity in the way of Easter eggs here…not that I should need that as a reminder. Anyway it snowed and I was freezing. I put two pairs of socks on and read my book. Aww Bridget Jones moment all by my self!
Monday
We thought the art school wouldn’t be open and so for some strange reason we decided to meet to go to the internet café at 8.30. I can’t sleep in any more. I’ve tried but I just lie there thinking get up and do something. Stop being Lazy! It’s made me more productive at least. So we turned up to the internet café put just as I suspected, it wasn’t open. We went to our trusty alternative Flunch. We are regulars now. When ever we profess our love for flunch people make fun of us as it’s really cheap and just full with old people. After lunch at flunch, Liz and I went back to Grace’s and she made us some hot chocolate in which she managed to use up a whole can of cream! I think we watched a bit of mtv. Oh also Grace painting a kind of manifesto over my back and chest and face, which took about 5 hours and then another 5 hours for her to take photos. It was a long evening. She then cooked us a meal. Riz et legumes!
Thursday
Well we’d been told it would be a good idea to arrange a tutorial with Philip Richard, who’s the painting lecturer here and apparently he’s really hard to get hold off. I’d heard he was in on Thursdays and you have to catch him early. So Liz and I arranged to meet at the fountain at 8.30 and try and chase him down. We turned up waited around where a few lecturers were standing and eventually I went up to one of them and said, ‘Ou est Philip Richard?’ to which he said ‘C’est moi’ and we arranged to meet that day at 11. We decided to go on a search for staples. My next painting’s pretty big and I needed to staple it to the wall. Philip Richard is actually Patricia’s husband. We’d been told by her that he speaks no English which is an absolute lie! He spoke brilliant English. The tutorial went really well. He was recommending Renaissance artists for me to look up as they are all interested in the theme of someone carelessly being watched at mundane activities like I am. After this, I stapled my canvas to the wall, put Primer on it, Liz did the same and we sat and watched paint dry. It didn’t dry that day so we went home.
That evening we’d arranged to go out to a Japanese restaurant with one of the guys from the other night called Quintin but we call him Mika because he has curly hair like the singer. He brought a few friends called Charlie and rhhh I can’t remember the other name. Anyway I found out Charlie spent a year in London last year and lived in Wood Green! Very close to where I live. We met them outside of O’kalloghans and incidentally decided to go in for a drink before the meal. The Grace and I ate the only thing we could on the menu, rice and avocado thing. After getting used to Grace’s amazing stir fry’s, this was quite boring. Some how during the night the waiter got it into his head that it was Grace’s birthday and we didn’t chose to correct him so he gave us free shots which were actually disgusting. There was a naked man that appeared at the bottom of the glass when the class was filled with liquid and disappeared when you drank though so that was cool.
Friday
Despite having a late night i wanted to get an early start on the finally dry canvas on my wall so I set my alarm for 7.30 and went in for about 9. I painted most of the day away. There’s starting to be loads of tourists here because of the Easter holidays and they all come in to look at the art school gounds. It’s strange the transformation from tourist to inhabitant. I mean I still think it’s beautiful here but I don’t look at in the same way I used to. The toursist, taking photos of every old looking building side of me went away after a few days and as I said I just wanted to fit in as a resident. Hmm also there was a parade through town and directly behind police cars and cars that collect rubbish wre directly behind. They’re so on the ball here. They go to great effort to keep Rouen the beautiful place that it is. I do have one complaint though there is so much dog crap every where. Amazingly I haven’t stepped in any yet.
I headed over to Liz’s at about 6. I was the last to arrive. Grace was already cooking away over the stove. She cooked meat for the boys too which was very nice of her. Hannah was chopping vegetables, Liz was in the living starring lovingly at the electric guitar that Mika had brought. He was amazing at the guitar and was playing old classic roch songs like Johnny be good. It was great. Charlie wasn’t musical at all so he just sat there all night I’m afraid. Yeah so grace served up her feast of a stir fry and rice this time adding cashew nuts and ginger to the mix. Unfortunatly and also quite hilariously Mika and Charlie could not stand the ginger and apologised that they couldn’t finished they’re meal. ‘In France we eat only meat!’
Later on Grace tried to teach me some salsa but fayed profusely. She kept saying ‘Look at your arms! They’re all floppy. Hold them firm!’ She spent a good 20 minutes trying to teach me and then gave up. I warned her I can’t dance. The night came to an end at about 10.30. We were all knackered. I sneakily asked if we could have a lift off of Mika.
Sunday
I’m ashamed to say I did not leave the house. I was looking through my diary and only realised it was Easter half way through the day. There’s not really much publicity in the way of Easter eggs here…not that I should need that as a reminder. Anyway it snowed and I was freezing. I put two pairs of socks on and read my book. Aww Bridget Jones moment all by my self!
Monday
We thought the art school wouldn’t be open and so for some strange reason we decided to meet to go to the internet café at 8.30. I can’t sleep in any more. I’ve tried but I just lie there thinking get up and do something. Stop being Lazy! It’s made me more productive at least. So we turned up to the internet café put just as I suspected, it wasn’t open. We went to our trusty alternative Flunch. We are regulars now. When ever we profess our love for flunch people make fun of us as it’s really cheap and just full with old people. After lunch at flunch, Liz and I went back to Grace’s and she made us some hot chocolate in which she managed to use up a whole can of cream! I think we watched a bit of mtv. Oh also Grace painting a kind of manifesto over my back and chest and face, which took about 5 hours and then another 5 hours for her to take photos. It was a long evening. She then cooked us a meal. Riz et legumes!
Tuesday
Presentations! Ahhh the day had finally come. Well Grace was first and it went wondrously well. She didn’t look at her bit of paper once and was engaging with everyone the whole time. Liz was next and she was reading off the paper and kept looking up and seemed astonished that people knew what she was talking about. Then came moi….i starred down at my paper for the majority of it, recited my speech and tried to get it over as soon as possible. It went well though. People recommended Artists and asked questions. Hannah went next and she too read off a prepared speech. It went well.
Presentations! Ahhh the day had finally come. Well Grace was first and it went wondrously well. She didn’t look at her bit of paper once and was engaging with everyone the whole time. Liz was next and she was reading off the paper and kept looking up and seemed astonished that people knew what she was talking about. Then came moi….i starred down at my paper for the majority of it, recited my speech and tried to get it over as soon as possible. It went well though. People recommended Artists and asked questions. Hannah went next and she too read off a prepared speech. It went well.
Apres I think we all just went home. I can’t remember. That evening I went to bed at a ridiculously early time. 9.30! I woke up at 1.00 and thought it was morning. I also had a really bad dream where these toyu jelly babies came to life and started undoing the strings of my guitar. I don’t know what that means. I think in the dream they were warning me that the guitar was cursed. Scary stuff!
Wednesay
I finished off my painting. Here it is.
Wednesay
I finished off my painting. Here it is.
Thursday
Well we’d been told it would be a good idea to arrange a tutorial with Philip Richard, who’s the painting lecturer here and apparently he’s really hard to get hold off. I’d heard he was in on Thursdays and you have to catch him early. So Liz and I arranged to meet at the fountain at 8.30 and try and chase him down. We turned up waited around where a few lecturers were standing and eventually I went up to one of them and said, ‘Ou est Philip Richard?’ to which he said ‘C’est moi’ and we arranged to meet that day at 11. We decided to go on a search for staples. My next painting’s pretty big and I needed to staple it to the wall. Philip Richard is actually Patricia’s husband. We’d been told by her that he speaks no English which is an absolute lie! He spoke brilliant English. The tutorial went really well. He was recommending Renaissance artists for me to look up as they are all interested in the theme of someone carelessly being watched at mundane activities like I am. After this, I stapled my canvas to the wall, put Primer on it, Liz did the same and we sat and watched paint dry. It didn’t dry that day so we went home.
That evening we’d arranged to go out to a Japanese restaurant with one of the guys from the other night called Quintin but we call him Mika because he has curly hair like the singer. He brought a few friends called Charlie and rhhh I can’t remember the other name. Anyway I found out Charlie spent a year in London last year and lived in Wood Green! Very close to where I live. We met them outside of O’kalloghans and incidentally decided to go in for a drink before the meal. The Grace and I ate the only thing we could on the menu, rice and avocado thing. After getting used to Grace’s amazing stir fry’s, this was quite boring. Some how during the night the waiter got it into his head that it was Grace’s birthday and we didn’t chose to correct him so he gave us free shots which were actually disgusting. There was a naked man that appeared at the bottom of the glass when the class was filled with liquid and disappeared when you drank though so that was cool.
After the meal we went back to O’kalloghans for a few more drinks. Good fun. We then went on to Emporiam Galloriam which wasn’t so fun. It’s too dark in there. We decided to call it a night. It was nice to see Mika again as we hate the idea that our friends here are disposable. After a few discussions about music we discovered that Mika plays the Ukulele and the guitar and he some how managed to arrange that we all have a music session at Liz’s the next night. Well we’re always keen to show off our wagon wheel rendition so we obliged. Liz stayed with me that night as it was too late or early to walk home.
Friday
Despite having a late night i wanted to get an early start on the finally dry canvas on my wall so I set my alarm for 7.30 and went in for about 9. I painted most of the day away. There’s starting to be loads of tourists here because of the Easter holidays and they all come in to look at the art school gounds. It’s strange the transformation from tourist to inhabitant. I mean I still think it’s beautiful here but I don’t look at in the same way I used to. The toursist, taking photos of every old looking building side of me went away after a few days and as I said I just wanted to fit in as a resident. Hmm also there was a parade through town and directly behind police cars and cars that collect rubbish wre directly behind. They’re so on the ball here. They go to great effort to keep Rouen the beautiful place that it is. I do have one complaint though there is so much dog crap every where. Amazingly I haven’t stepped in any yet.
I headed over to Liz’s at about 6. I was the last to arrive. Grace was already cooking away over the stove. She cooked meat for the boys too which was very nice of her. Hannah was chopping vegetables, Liz was in the living starring lovingly at the electric guitar that Mika had brought. He was amazing at the guitar and was playing old classic roch songs like Johnny be good. It was great. Charlie wasn’t musical at all so he just sat there all night I’m afraid. Yeah so grace served up her feast of a stir fry and rice this time adding cashew nuts and ginger to the mix. Unfortunatly and also quite hilariously Mika and Charlie could not stand the ginger and apologised that they couldn’t finished they’re meal. ‘In France we eat only meat!’
Later on Grace tried to teach me some salsa but fayed profusely. She kept saying ‘Look at your arms! They’re all floppy. Hold them firm!’ She spent a good 20 minutes trying to teach me and then gave up. I warned her I can’t dance. The night came to an end at about 10.30. We were all knackered. I sneakily asked if we could have a lift off of Mika.
Saturday
Strangely every single Saturday without fail, It’s always sunny. So it always puts me in a good mood for the weekend. I woke up pretty early and cleaned my apartment form top to bottom and then met Liz and Hannah in the laundrette…..to do laundry. I finished atonement. We then went on to Café cheri, which was absolutely packed with students. This may be the reason why my lap top wasn’t connecting but I just wanted to throw it across the room.
Hannah invited us over to hers for a meal and a film. She made us delicious quiche thing and salad. We watched little miss sunshine which I love.
Strangely every single Saturday without fail, It’s always sunny. So it always puts me in a good mood for the weekend. I woke up pretty early and cleaned my apartment form top to bottom and then met Liz and Hannah in the laundrette…..to do laundry. I finished atonement. We then went on to Café cheri, which was absolutely packed with students. This may be the reason why my lap top wasn’t connecting but I just wanted to throw it across the room.
Hannah invited us over to hers for a meal and a film. She made us delicious quiche thing and salad. We watched little miss sunshine which I love.
Monday, 24 March 2008
19th March onwards.
Wednesay
I don’t think we did very much. I finished my book ‘The girls’. It was very sad. They didn’t die during the book but they only had a few days left to live. Don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve lent it to liz now and I’ve started ‘Atonement’. Think I’m in stall for some more crying!
Thursday
I went into the studio relatively early to do some painting. I then went into the tobacco shop and asked if they had any stamps to England and she looked at me strangely and said non. I’d heard they sold stamps in tobacco shops. Maybe I was wrong. After this Hannah and I found the post office and bought stamps from the conventional place! I needed to post Cecile all her electricity bills. Hannah was sending a map of Rouen to her mum Yeah so not really very interesting day.
Grace, Liz, Hannah, Christoph and I went to the cinema to see a film called ‘Paris’. I’d heard it was a romantic film so was surprised when the main character; a gay man, was dieing and needed a heart transplant, his neighbour; young girl had slept with her lecturer, who was now stalking her and then some models had sex with some strange men in a meat factory. It was basically about how we all cross paths with each other and you observe people who are living their own lives. There was a lot of random sex with strangers though. Lovely paris, city of love.
Friday
I went into the studio did some painting and then went for a hot chocolate with Grace. We decided to go to a little café just next to the art school, where the hot chocolate tastes like paint but for some reason we keep torturing ourselves and buying more. We’d been in the café a few minutes when Albert, the student representative came in, so Grace invited him to join us. I found out a few things from this conversation. Apparently I stare too much and it makes people feel threatened. Grace and him were talking in French and I was trying to keep up so when I’m listening intently I tend to glare a little. I guess I find it hard to know what I’m doing with my face and end up giving people evil looks when I don’t mean to. Albert was warning me that I shouldn’t do this as in France you don’t hold eye contact even when talking to people, you look for a second then you look away. He said I’ll get into a lot of trouble if I look at people on the bus like that. Whoops! I just thought it shows your listening. So now when I’m taking to people I’m a bit like ‘right should I look away now?’ How long should I look away before it seems rude? There’s so many things to remember. Being a human is hard. Albert also informed us that there’s an opportunity to enter your work in an exhibition which is also a competition. The work doesn’t come down until after we come home though so I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it.
Grace invited Hannah, Liz and I over to hers for some vegetarian sushi. It was delicious. We decided to go to O’kalloghans after this, what with it being Friday night and all.
We had bottles of a gorgeous beer called desperado where you put the lime in the bottle. We arrived at about 11 and had been in there for an hour or so when a guy came over to grace and asked us to come and join him and his friends. After some hesitation we decided why not! As I’ve said before being English here is like being a celebrity. They get so excited. Hannah decided to go home at this point. I spoke French all night. I’m getting much better at speaking it but listening and understanding is a different story. I know it’s supposed to be the other way round. When I speak the person I’m speaking to speaks French really fast back to me and then I stare blankly so in the end the French spoke English all night and we spoke French. Oh another rule… apparently when toasting you have to look the person you’re toasting with in the eye and it’s considered rude if you don’t. I can’t win!
O’kalloghans finished at 2 and our new friends invited us to a discothèque we hadn’t been to before. I was pretty tired but was persuaded around by the girls so we’d been walking a minute when one of Grace’s heels from the boots she brought that day, broke! She hobbled back to her apartment to change her shoes while we all waited outside. We eventually got to the club, were in the queue, found out it’s 12 euros to get in and decided not to go. Instead we all went back to one of the guy’s apartment for some drinks there. He and his girl friend didn’t really say much all night but he had a snake and a rat to make up for it. He took the snake out and made us all touch it. I was petrified. We spent the rest of evening, or morning talking about various things such as where phrases such as OK stem from, the music we like and then they showed us a gay calendar of a French rugby team. Lovely. We left at about 5. Liz stayed at mine.
Saturday
I didn’t wake up until 1. Had just started writing my French presentation I have to do this Tuesday, when I got a call from Grace asking if I would come with her to replace her shoes. I was great full of the distraction and said yeah. It was bitterly cold though. In the shop just as we were about to be served, Grace turned to me and said ‘Mary what’s the word for shoe?’ I didn’t know but we managed it some how. She wasn’t allowed a refund so she swapped them with a grey top and got store credit. Riveting information I know! This was pretty much all I did with my day though. Later on I went over to Graces to watch ‘The Lady Killers’ but I fell asleep half way (surprise, surprise) so decided to go home and have an early night.
Wednesay
I don’t think we did very much. I finished my book ‘The girls’. It was very sad. They didn’t die during the book but they only had a few days left to live. Don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’ve lent it to liz now and I’ve started ‘Atonement’. Think I’m in stall for some more crying!
Thursday
I went into the studio relatively early to do some painting. I then went into the tobacco shop and asked if they had any stamps to England and she looked at me strangely and said non. I’d heard they sold stamps in tobacco shops. Maybe I was wrong. After this Hannah and I found the post office and bought stamps from the conventional place! I needed to post Cecile all her electricity bills. Hannah was sending a map of Rouen to her mum Yeah so not really very interesting day.
Grace, Liz, Hannah, Christoph and I went to the cinema to see a film called ‘Paris’. I’d heard it was a romantic film so was surprised when the main character; a gay man, was dieing and needed a heart transplant, his neighbour; young girl had slept with her lecturer, who was now stalking her and then some models had sex with some strange men in a meat factory. It was basically about how we all cross paths with each other and you observe people who are living their own lives. There was a lot of random sex with strangers though. Lovely paris, city of love.
Friday
I went into the studio did some painting and then went for a hot chocolate with Grace. We decided to go to a little café just next to the art school, where the hot chocolate tastes like paint but for some reason we keep torturing ourselves and buying more. We’d been in the café a few minutes when Albert, the student representative came in, so Grace invited him to join us. I found out a few things from this conversation. Apparently I stare too much and it makes people feel threatened. Grace and him were talking in French and I was trying to keep up so when I’m listening intently I tend to glare a little. I guess I find it hard to know what I’m doing with my face and end up giving people evil looks when I don’t mean to. Albert was warning me that I shouldn’t do this as in France you don’t hold eye contact even when talking to people, you look for a second then you look away. He said I’ll get into a lot of trouble if I look at people on the bus like that. Whoops! I just thought it shows your listening. So now when I’m taking to people I’m a bit like ‘right should I look away now?’ How long should I look away before it seems rude? There’s so many things to remember. Being a human is hard. Albert also informed us that there’s an opportunity to enter your work in an exhibition which is also a competition. The work doesn’t come down until after we come home though so I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it.
Grace invited Hannah, Liz and I over to hers for some vegetarian sushi. It was delicious. We decided to go to O’kalloghans after this, what with it being Friday night and all.
We had bottles of a gorgeous beer called desperado where you put the lime in the bottle. We arrived at about 11 and had been in there for an hour or so when a guy came over to grace and asked us to come and join him and his friends. After some hesitation we decided why not! As I’ve said before being English here is like being a celebrity. They get so excited. Hannah decided to go home at this point. I spoke French all night. I’m getting much better at speaking it but listening and understanding is a different story. I know it’s supposed to be the other way round. When I speak the person I’m speaking to speaks French really fast back to me and then I stare blankly so in the end the French spoke English all night and we spoke French. Oh another rule… apparently when toasting you have to look the person you’re toasting with in the eye and it’s considered rude if you don’t. I can’t win!
O’kalloghans finished at 2 and our new friends invited us to a discothèque we hadn’t been to before. I was pretty tired but was persuaded around by the girls so we’d been walking a minute when one of Grace’s heels from the boots she brought that day, broke! She hobbled back to her apartment to change her shoes while we all waited outside. We eventually got to the club, were in the queue, found out it’s 12 euros to get in and decided not to go. Instead we all went back to one of the guy’s apartment for some drinks there. He and his girl friend didn’t really say much all night but he had a snake and a rat to make up for it. He took the snake out and made us all touch it. I was petrified. We spent the rest of evening, or morning talking about various things such as where phrases such as OK stem from, the music we like and then they showed us a gay calendar of a French rugby team. Lovely. We left at about 5. Liz stayed at mine.
Saturday
I didn’t wake up until 1. Had just started writing my French presentation I have to do this Tuesday, when I got a call from Grace asking if I would come with her to replace her shoes. I was great full of the distraction and said yeah. It was bitterly cold though. In the shop just as we were about to be served, Grace turned to me and said ‘Mary what’s the word for shoe?’ I didn’t know but we managed it some how. She wasn’t allowed a refund so she swapped them with a grey top and got store credit. Riveting information I know! This was pretty much all I did with my day though. Later on I went over to Graces to watch ‘The Lady Killers’ but I fell asleep half way (surprise, surprise) so decided to go home and have an early night.
Monday, 17 March 2008
Saturday
During the day we all just got jobs done really- Reading critical studies text, cleaning my apartment, grocery shopping and such like. I also continued to read a book about conjoined twins. It’s getting very sad as the mobile sister who has carried her sister around on her waste her whole life now has a brain tumour and needs a wheel chair as she can no longer hold her sister. They’re joined at the head. Anyway on a brighter note….um la. I got a call from Grace asking if I wanted to go to Flunch to use the internet. I took my tap top but sadly the connection was down. Liz had left her mobile in the internet on Friday so she wasn’t contactable. We’d just finished our chocolates when Grace said ‘I feel like going out dancing’. I was easily persuaded so we ventured over to Liz’s house. Luckily some one had left the gate open so we didn’t have to sing her out of her apartment as we’d planned. Liz too was easily persuaded so we walked all the way back into town to go to grace’s for some wine and to get ready. By this point it was about 9ish. We spent the night doing ridiculous hairstyle and taking copious amounts of photos of them, playing the guitar, singing songs from our childhood-Grace seemed to know the line of every thing Disney film ever written. We didn’t leave the house until 1.00! This by far the latest time I’ve ever gone out.
First stop- Emporium Galorium. We hadn’t been there since our night out with Pap and Eddie. The wine we’d drank at home must have had an effect on us as Liz spilt a drink and Grace accidentally bit a glow stick and spat the contents out at one of the bar staff. She was not pleased to be luminous. I thought it looked pretty. At this point we thought it would be a good time to leave before we made any more enemies. We moved onto to the kiosk where Simon and Kevin had taken us last Saturday. In there we befriended an English girl who’s a Erasmus exchange student at Rouen university. Unfortunately in the club they make you hand your bag in at the cloak room so no one had their mobiles or remembered their numbers or paper to write them on. If it’s meant to be we’ll meet again.
Hmm also I asked for water but I just said leu in stead of d’leu so that caused some confusion. Chaos all around.
Sunday was spent in bed. Well we only returned home from the club at about 5 so it’s not surprising.
Monday Monday so good to me
I met the girls at the fountain at about 10 and we ventured off to the art school. Got a faire bit of painting done. In fact I finished my painting. Here is the finished product. I’m not entirely happy with it as the colours are a bit too bland.
That evening we went to the cinema to see a French film about the differences between the north and the south of France. Well apparently this was what it was about. Unfortunately I fell asleep for the majority of it. I did you proud Mum! I awoke occasionly to hear the sound of Grace laughing in hysterics. I guess the divide between the north and the south of france is funny.
Tuesday
I went to the new internet café we’ve found called cher café to use the net and have some hot chocolate. It’s a lot nicer and more sophisticated than flunch. Sorry Flunch! we still love you, just cheat on you de temps en temp. After this I went to the art school to take part in the group crits we have on Tuesday. I’m going to have to do a presentation in French about my work in a few weeks. Today I was sitting in on two French girls doing their presentation in English. One of the girls did very large scale abstract paintings of mountains and the other had done a casting of a foot attached to a head. We were supposed to ask questions so I asked if she wanted her work to have an open narrative. There was lots of discussion over what this question means. They were all very impressed. I felt clever. We also had some Caramel tea which was very tastey.
Apres this we were all starving and we’d a few days before we’d passed a Japanese restaurant and someone had the crazy idea of going right there and then for sushi. This was by far the most show biz moment I’ve ever had in my life. I said I felt like one of the girls from sex and the city. Grace and I had the vegetarian option non poison pour moi! We finished it off with some bananna splits and went back to the studio to paint.
Wednesday
Liz and I went to the studio earlyish. Grace, I don’t know what she was doing and Hannah was working at home je pense. Simon and Kevin came into the studio for a little rendez vous and Kevin invited us to his that evening for a party. We willingly obliged.
During the day we all just got jobs done really- Reading critical studies text, cleaning my apartment, grocery shopping and such like. I also continued to read a book about conjoined twins. It’s getting very sad as the mobile sister who has carried her sister around on her waste her whole life now has a brain tumour and needs a wheel chair as she can no longer hold her sister. They’re joined at the head. Anyway on a brighter note….um la. I got a call from Grace asking if I wanted to go to Flunch to use the internet. I took my tap top but sadly the connection was down. Liz had left her mobile in the internet on Friday so she wasn’t contactable. We’d just finished our chocolates when Grace said ‘I feel like going out dancing’. I was easily persuaded so we ventured over to Liz’s house. Luckily some one had left the gate open so we didn’t have to sing her out of her apartment as we’d planned. Liz too was easily persuaded so we walked all the way back into town to go to grace’s for some wine and to get ready. By this point it was about 9ish. We spent the night doing ridiculous hairstyle and taking copious amounts of photos of them, playing the guitar, singing songs from our childhood-Grace seemed to know the line of every thing Disney film ever written. We didn’t leave the house until 1.00! This by far the latest time I’ve ever gone out.
First stop- Emporium Galorium. We hadn’t been there since our night out with Pap and Eddie. The wine we’d drank at home must have had an effect on us as Liz spilt a drink and Grace accidentally bit a glow stick and spat the contents out at one of the bar staff. She was not pleased to be luminous. I thought it looked pretty. At this point we thought it would be a good time to leave before we made any more enemies. We moved onto to the kiosk where Simon and Kevin had taken us last Saturday. In there we befriended an English girl who’s a Erasmus exchange student at Rouen university. Unfortunately in the club they make you hand your bag in at the cloak room so no one had their mobiles or remembered their numbers or paper to write them on. If it’s meant to be we’ll meet again.
Hmm also I asked for water but I just said leu in stead of d’leu so that caused some confusion. Chaos all around.
Sunday was spent in bed. Well we only returned home from the club at about 5 so it’s not surprising.
Monday Monday so good to me
I met the girls at the fountain at about 10 and we ventured off to the art school. Got a faire bit of painting done. In fact I finished my painting. Here is the finished product. I’m not entirely happy with it as the colours are a bit too bland.
That evening we went to the cinema to see a French film about the differences between the north and the south of France. Well apparently this was what it was about. Unfortunately I fell asleep for the majority of it. I did you proud Mum! I awoke occasionly to hear the sound of Grace laughing in hysterics. I guess the divide between the north and the south of france is funny.
Tuesday
I went to the new internet café we’ve found called cher café to use the net and have some hot chocolate. It’s a lot nicer and more sophisticated than flunch. Sorry Flunch! we still love you, just cheat on you de temps en temp. After this I went to the art school to take part in the group crits we have on Tuesday. I’m going to have to do a presentation in French about my work in a few weeks. Today I was sitting in on two French girls doing their presentation in English. One of the girls did very large scale abstract paintings of mountains and the other had done a casting of a foot attached to a head. We were supposed to ask questions so I asked if she wanted her work to have an open narrative. There was lots of discussion over what this question means. They were all very impressed. I felt clever. We also had some Caramel tea which was very tastey.
Apres this we were all starving and we’d a few days before we’d passed a Japanese restaurant and someone had the crazy idea of going right there and then for sushi. This was by far the most show biz moment I’ve ever had in my life. I said I felt like one of the girls from sex and the city. Grace and I had the vegetarian option non poison pour moi! We finished it off with some bananna splits and went back to the studio to paint.
Wednesday
Liz and I went to the studio earlyish. Grace, I don’t know what she was doing and Hannah was working at home je pense. Simon and Kevin came into the studio for a little rendez vous and Kevin invited us to his that evening for a party. We willingly obliged.
After some discussion whether or not to bring the guitar we decided it would seem a bit like ‘hey guys let us play you a song!’ so we opted not to bring it. As the night went on, a few hours after arriving we began to think ‘let us play you a song!’ so we went back to get the guitar and sang a few of our classics. One guy kept wanted Liz to just play chords while he randomly sang. This was very funny. The same guy also wanted me to play ‘I believe I can fly’ on the guitar. I didn’t know the chords so he sung it accapella and the whole room joined it. This too was very funny. It was really nice to socialise with people from the art school. Most of them are around 25 as their art school goes on for 5 years instead of 3. Jai parle un petite peu Francais mais tres mal. Hmm there was also lots of dancing despite the small size of Kevin’s apartment. We returned home a je ne sais pas l’heure parce que I was a little drunk.
Thursday
Liz et moi went to the internet café for some surfing. We ate some lunch in there. I had toast with camembert and Liz had toast with tuna. Tasty. Not the tuna though et puis we went shopping! It was about 3 in the afternoon at this point and you have to leave the art school by 6 so there would barely be any time to paint. I’m in love with a boutique here. The colours of the clothes are actually very dull but I love them. Any one who knows me know I wear lots of bright colours….well not any more! While i appreciate this isn't very interesting...im writing it any way!
Liz et moi went to the internet café for some surfing. We ate some lunch in there. I had toast with camembert and Liz had toast with tuna. Tasty. Not the tuna though et puis we went shopping! It was about 3 in the afternoon at this point and you have to leave the art school by 6 so there would barely be any time to paint. I’m in love with a boutique here. The colours of the clothes are actually very dull but I love them. Any one who knows me know I wear lots of bright colours….well not any more! While i appreciate this isn't very interesting...im writing it any way!
Friday
Paris!!!! Well I met Grace and Liz at our usual meeting place, the fountain. We departed and headed for the station. We decided to take a different route to the one we’d taken before. The stations actually really close! Previously when finding the station, we just walked in a circle in every possible wrong road and direction. We stopped off to buy some nuts. I bought a random dish which was basically mushrooms and unions in a tub. I was advised not to eat it on the train as Grace thought it would smell. Yeah it did when I opened later. Cheers Grace. Also I didn’t have a fork which was a slight problem. Annnnyway we arrived in Paris at about 4 o clock and the station looked strangely familiar. We all started to feel like it was yesterday when we first arrived and couldn’t believe it was a month since we were last standing in that station. Very strange. I was remembering how petrified and out of my depth I felt and now I absolutely adore Rouen, and France in general.
Paris!!!! Well I met Grace and Liz at our usual meeting place, the fountain. We departed and headed for the station. We decided to take a different route to the one we’d taken before. The stations actually really close! Previously when finding the station, we just walked in a circle in every possible wrong road and direction. We stopped off to buy some nuts. I bought a random dish which was basically mushrooms and unions in a tub. I was advised not to eat it on the train as Grace thought it would smell. Yeah it did when I opened later. Cheers Grace. Also I didn’t have a fork which was a slight problem. Annnnyway we arrived in Paris at about 4 o clock and the station looked strangely familiar. We all started to feel like it was yesterday when we first arrived and couldn’t believe it was a month since we were last standing in that station. Very strange. I was remembering how petrified and out of my depth I felt and now I absolutely adore Rouen, and France in general.
The hostel we booked a few days before is actually not in Paris but in Basilique de Saint Denis so we had a long metro journey ahead of us! We brought a carnet to share between us and jumped on a train. In saint denis we didn’t not have a clue where to go, where the hostel was in relation to the station or anything really so we headed for the tourist information to get a map. At this point in our time in France, Rouen feels like a home. Although this is a good thing, we began to feel a bit too comfortable and thought…lets’s throw ourselves in the deep end again! Hence, not planning too far ahead.
With our map in hands, we started to try and find the hostel. After a few wrong turns, we were getting close but got confused and asked in a flower shop. I asked in French and she understood! For some reason I always assume it’s not going to make any sense because of my terrible accent. Je pense tous les films jai regarde est bon idee….
The hostel ‘formular 1’ was in quite a shabby area with lots of lurking men on the streets. There was also a security guard with a dog with a broken leg outside the hostel which I though was pretty strange. The room it’s self was fine. So we got settled in. I ate my onion, mushroom thing, had a shower and then we headed down Paris.
I’d arranged to meet my friend Laura, from home that evening. Her and her friend Jenny had just travelled up from Montpellia, where they are working as teaching assistants for the year. We decided to meet in the louver as it’s as good a place as any. Oh yeah thought we might say hello to old Mona lisa too. After the louver we were all starving so we went in search of some food. Laura had been recommended the food district area qui s’appelle…I can’t remember. Serf ice to say, due to all of our eating, dietary requirements, an authentic French restaurant would not cater for our needs, not too mention our budget so we went to a Japanese restaurant again!
Saturday
Well despite setting the alarm for 8 no one got out of bed until 9.30. After having got ready, we were all feeling very thirsty and decided to get a hot chocolate from the vending machine downstairs. I can honestly say this was the best hot chocolate I have had in France or maybe even ever! It was 1 euro. Anyway enough rambling. –In France instead of the word ‘anyway’ a lot of the French make a random noise, where they grasp they’re lips together and blow. It sort of if they don’t know what to say. It’s pretty funny. Anyway that was more rambling.
So we decided the first and fore most thing we should do it climb the Eiffel tower being in Paris and all. Oh before this we stopped off at the supermarket to get some food for lunch. After eating the lunch that we’d bought, we joined a long and hefty cue for the tower. I felt more like I was in America than France. We heard so many Americans and also Japanese. There was a large group of Japanese in front of us and Liz said she caught them eyeing up a dog. She said she saw all of they’re heads turn as though they’d seen dinner. I’m not sure if this was true but I felt ill. As is turns out we weren’t allowed to climb it the Eiffel tower and had to use the lift. We went to the third floor. The view was alright. No it was beautiful. Oh and I almost forgot the best bit. We saw a woman being proposed too! It was so romantic if not a little clichéd but lovely all the same. He got down on one knee and there were smiles all around. Thankfully!
Once we’d witnessed this there was nothing left to see. We were however allowed to walk down all the stairs the whole way. Believe me I am still paying for this now. My calves ache even if I walk down one step now. It was fun at the time.
Well despite setting the alarm for 8 no one got out of bed until 9.30. After having got ready, we were all feeling very thirsty and decided to get a hot chocolate from the vending machine downstairs. I can honestly say this was the best hot chocolate I have had in France or maybe even ever! It was 1 euro. Anyway enough rambling. –In France instead of the word ‘anyway’ a lot of the French make a random noise, where they grasp they’re lips together and blow. It sort of if they don’t know what to say. It’s pretty funny. Anyway that was more rambling.
So we decided the first and fore most thing we should do it climb the Eiffel tower being in Paris and all. Oh before this we stopped off at the supermarket to get some food for lunch. After eating the lunch that we’d bought, we joined a long and hefty cue for the tower. I felt more like I was in America than France. We heard so many Americans and also Japanese. There was a large group of Japanese in front of us and Liz said she caught them eyeing up a dog. She said she saw all of they’re heads turn as though they’d seen dinner. I’m not sure if this was true but I felt ill. As is turns out we weren’t allowed to climb it the Eiffel tower and had to use the lift. We went to the third floor. The view was alright. No it was beautiful. Oh and I almost forgot the best bit. We saw a woman being proposed too! It was so romantic if not a little clichéd but lovely all the same. He got down on one knee and there were smiles all around. Thankfully!
Once we’d witnessed this there was nothing left to see. We were however allowed to walk down all the stairs the whole way. Believe me I am still paying for this now. My calves ache even if I walk down one step now. It was fun at the time.
Grace unfortunately was feeling very ill and was not up to anything active so we went to a café on the Champs Elise to sit down. so that we didn’t have to go home but grace could be near a toilet decided to go to the cinema. She’ll love me for saying that! We saw a film called 10 000 bc. This was how the conversation went afterwards. Liz to Grace ‘That was abit shit wasn’t it?’ Me to Liz ‘Wasn’t that brilliant!’ I loved it. After this we headed back to the hostel. Liz put a few streaks of Purple in Grace’s hair and I read my book.
Sunday
Sunday
We met Laura and Jenny in town and went to the Ameli café for some hot chocolate. I seem to be drinking a lot of hot chocolate here. I think it’s the new tea. Grace was still feeling worse for ware so we decided to head back to Rouen. Not too mention we all missed Rouen madly! I’ve grown so attached and especially when you see the fast pasted un homeliness of Paris.
That evening we went over to Hannah’s apartment to watch a film. We watched When Harry met Sally and ate lots of ice cream. Yum!
That evening we went over to Hannah’s apartment to watch a film. We watched When Harry met Sally and ate lots of ice cream. Yum!
Monday -Saint Patrick’s Day. Well I went into the art school at about 9.30. I really missed painting that weekend so was eager to get a move on. At about 3 I went on to café cheri to use the internet. I made my hot chocolate last a good few hours probably to their disapproval. That evening we decided to go to O’kalloghans aka the Irish pub. The atmosphere was brilliant. There a was band out side, a beer stand, bag pipe, the hats, all the typical St Patricks day festivities, except everyone was speaking French. We made lots of friends and went back to someone’s apartment with a group of people for some more drinks. I spoke in French all night and they played us some French rock which was interesting! 
Tuesday
Liz stayed at mine the night before as it was too late to walk back. She left to go home at about 10 and the hour seemed to disappear as I was in a rush to get in for 11 for our weekly group crits. We had been asked to bring food in so we brought jaffa cakes, biscuits. Just as Grace had eaten two jaffa cakes she read on the ingredients that they have Gluton in, which I one of the things she’s allergic to! We’re just pretending she didn’t eat it so it can be a placebo hopefully. I guess she’ll let us know tomorrow!
In the crit a girl called Chloe was talking about her superimposed images taken under water. Patricia also informed us that our presentations have been pushed forward to next week. Whoopeee! I spent the rest of the day painting.
Liz stayed at mine the night before as it was too late to walk back. She left to go home at about 10 and the hour seemed to disappear as I was in a rush to get in for 11 for our weekly group crits. We had been asked to bring food in so we brought jaffa cakes, biscuits. Just as Grace had eaten two jaffa cakes she read on the ingredients that they have Gluton in, which I one of the things she’s allergic to! We’re just pretending she didn’t eat it so it can be a placebo hopefully. I guess she’ll let us know tomorrow!
In the crit a girl called Chloe was talking about her superimposed images taken under water. Patricia also informed us that our presentations have been pushed forward to next week. Whoopeee! I spent the rest of the day painting.
Monday, 10 March 2008
Monday
First thing we went to the supermarket, printed photos and bought 4 euro stalls for the studio and some old man sleepers for the studio as our feet were soaking from the rain. We finally started painting in the studio. I started working from one of the photographs I’d taken of the girls playing the guitar in the laundrette. I’m interested in a new subject, out of proportion, disorientating angles. Here are some of the photos I took and here’s the finished painting.
Can’t remember what we did that evening…
First thing we went to the supermarket, printed photos and bought 4 euro stalls for the studio and some old man sleepers for the studio as our feet were soaking from the rain. We finally started painting in the studio. I started working from one of the photographs I’d taken of the girls playing the guitar in the laundrette. I’m interested in a new subject, out of proportion, disorientating angles. Here are some of the photos I took and here’s the finished painting.
Can’t remember what we did that evening…
Tuesday
We had the politics lecture. We desperately wanted to paint instead as we’d finally got started and didn’t fancy making fools out of our selves all morning at the lecture but we went to it and it wasn’t that bad. We didn’t talk any French though. Patricia asked us to go to the front of the room, sit on the desk and face the class and asked us to talk about British politics….. So we started talking about the NHS, identity fraud, identity cards dispute, security cameras, getting syringes over the counter at pharmacies, Gordon Brown and various other things that popped into our heads. Meanwhile everyone just starred at us. Then Patricia asked us to talk about French politics. All we knew is that it’s right wing and the President has a singer for a girl friend so we didn’t really know what to say. Anyway this went on for about 2 and a half hours and although it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be, I was glad when it finished at I could go back and carry on painting.. At the end a girl came over to me and asked me if I was a scout. I was wearing my painting scouts shirt which used to be my brothers. She seemed quite excited as she hung around for about 5-10 minutes to ask me this question. Apparently she used to be a scout. After this we went back to the studio and continued painting.
That evening Grace, Liz and I went out to an Indian restaurant which was delicious. Both Liz and Grace broke there ban on cheese for the night and had a dish with cheese in it. We had the restaurant to our self and I forgot we were in France for a little while because the Indian man spoke to us in English. When we’d finished we decided to go to Boite a bierre for a quick drink. We ran into Christoph there. We played some pool with him and I actually potted quite a few balls for once.
Wednesday
We painted in the studio while listening to music. I don’t think we did much that evening.
Thursday
Liz, Hannah and I went into the studio and painted. A girl called Aline came over to us and said ‘you like punk music?’ to which we said ‘yeah’ so she invited us to go and see a punk band that evening. I went to Liz’s at around 5 and she cooked me dinner. I got the hick ups and then we headed to the Irish pub to meet Grace, Christoph, Hannah, Aline and another girl.
The band…… well they were interesting. The first band was just a lot of noise and bad dancing I’d say and then the singer decided to take off his shirt. To make the band more bearable we had a few drinks. Grace had 1, Hannah had a few and Liz and I had about 4 and Christoph expressed his concern over how much we were drinking as it was more than he drinks and he didn’t want to carry us home later. We just laughed as we weren’t even tipsy let alone drunk. He said French girls don’t drink. Anyway the next band was a cross dressing German band who spoke in English as a common language. I did not like them either. They were dressed as snow white, a saucy bunny rabbit and a rocky horror drag type outfit. The singer was an even bigger poser than the last one and I guess he thought the stage wasn’t high enough as he thought it would be a good idea to stand on a chair whenever he sang and some times when he was just playing guitar, just in case we forgot he we there. A few people were taking up his dress angle photos of him, which he obviously loved. All in all… a strange but good night. The gig was on the other side of the bridge. This photo was a view from the bridge. Stunning! I love Rouen.
We had the politics lecture. We desperately wanted to paint instead as we’d finally got started and didn’t fancy making fools out of our selves all morning at the lecture but we went to it and it wasn’t that bad. We didn’t talk any French though. Patricia asked us to go to the front of the room, sit on the desk and face the class and asked us to talk about British politics….. So we started talking about the NHS, identity fraud, identity cards dispute, security cameras, getting syringes over the counter at pharmacies, Gordon Brown and various other things that popped into our heads. Meanwhile everyone just starred at us. Then Patricia asked us to talk about French politics. All we knew is that it’s right wing and the President has a singer for a girl friend so we didn’t really know what to say. Anyway this went on for about 2 and a half hours and although it wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be, I was glad when it finished at I could go back and carry on painting.. At the end a girl came over to me and asked me if I was a scout. I was wearing my painting scouts shirt which used to be my brothers. She seemed quite excited as she hung around for about 5-10 minutes to ask me this question. Apparently she used to be a scout. After this we went back to the studio and continued painting.
That evening Grace, Liz and I went out to an Indian restaurant which was delicious. Both Liz and Grace broke there ban on cheese for the night and had a dish with cheese in it. We had the restaurant to our self and I forgot we were in France for a little while because the Indian man spoke to us in English. When we’d finished we decided to go to Boite a bierre for a quick drink. We ran into Christoph there. We played some pool with him and I actually potted quite a few balls for once.
Wednesday
We painted in the studio while listening to music. I don’t think we did much that evening.
Thursday
Liz, Hannah and I went into the studio and painted. A girl called Aline came over to us and said ‘you like punk music?’ to which we said ‘yeah’ so she invited us to go and see a punk band that evening. I went to Liz’s at around 5 and she cooked me dinner. I got the hick ups and then we headed to the Irish pub to meet Grace, Christoph, Hannah, Aline and another girl.
The band…… well they were interesting. The first band was just a lot of noise and bad dancing I’d say and then the singer decided to take off his shirt. To make the band more bearable we had a few drinks. Grace had 1, Hannah had a few and Liz and I had about 4 and Christoph expressed his concern over how much we were drinking as it was more than he drinks and he didn’t want to carry us home later. We just laughed as we weren’t even tipsy let alone drunk. He said French girls don’t drink. Anyway the next band was a cross dressing German band who spoke in English as a common language. I did not like them either. They were dressed as snow white, a saucy bunny rabbit and a rocky horror drag type outfit. The singer was an even bigger poser than the last one and I guess he thought the stage wasn’t high enough as he thought it would be a good idea to stand on a chair whenever he sang and some times when he was just playing guitar, just in case we forgot he we there. A few people were taking up his dress angle photos of him, which he obviously loved. All in all… a strange but good night. The gig was on the other side of the bridge. This photo was a view from the bridge. Stunning! I love Rouen.
Friday
We went met up to go to the internet café oh and while we were there grace over heard some women speaking badly about us. She has this amazing nack of listening to French, even while she’s talking. Apparently they mimicked us going ‘oooh look at me I’m English!’ This was the first encounter of some unfriendly French. Well we’re a month in so it’s pretty good I’d say.
That evening Hannah, Liz and I went over to Grace’s for dinner. She made a kind of Japanese rice, veg meal that was delicious. I played the guitar for a while then we watched Ghost. I fell asleep. I’ve got a bit of a nick name… Mary Fatigue.(can’t find accent ) It was ever since Pap said it and now if I get a bit tired at night I always hear it.
We went met up to go to the internet café oh and while we were there grace over heard some women speaking badly about us. She has this amazing nack of listening to French, even while she’s talking. Apparently they mimicked us going ‘oooh look at me I’m English!’ This was the first encounter of some unfriendly French. Well we’re a month in so it’s pretty good I’d say.
That evening Hannah, Liz and I went over to Grace’s for dinner. She made a kind of Japanese rice, veg meal that was delicious. I played the guitar for a while then we watched Ghost. I fell asleep. I’ve got a bit of a nick name… Mary Fatigue.(can’t find accent ) It was ever since Pap said it and now if I get a bit tired at night I always hear it.
Monday, 3 March 2008
I haven’t written for a while as I’ve been really busy. We keep saying we’ve never been so social in all our lives. So far we havn’t turned down any invitation or missed anything arranged for us a college but as a result of the latter I haven’t managed to do any painting yet! I’ve taken lots of photos that I want to work from and I’m planning to paint in the studio finally today. Here’s what I’ve been up to for the past week.
Saturday
Grace and I went to the laundrette and recited French vocab to keep us occupied. I’d imagine je suis, tu as, vous avez etc for an hour and a half became quite annoying for the woman in there with us. When we’d put our clothes in the dryer I noticed it was 10.40 and we’d arranged to meet Hannah(the final exchange student) at 11.00 so Grace quickly ran home for a shower and I continued to recite my French.
We met up with Hannah in town and showed her where the supermarket was. We then went out to a cheap restaurant called flunch which I can never remember the name of and keep calling it flunge for some reason . It does a healthy salad type buffet and lovely Pecon pies that we’re all addicted to. Anyway we’ve recently read a sign that it has free internet access there too so instead of paying 5 euros for an hour at the café, we can have some pie.
That evening we went to the Irish pub again and another group of people overheard us talking and approached us wanting to talk to us. It’s not even sleazy men, there were women there too. Everyone is just so welcoming and friendly and curious about us. Grace noticed that throughout the night one man kept moving about the room, looking around and writing in his book. At first we thought he was a critic or journalist and then we came to a conclusion that he’s a writer writing a novel. He was looking at us for a while and so I said to the girls ‘what if we’re the main characters!’ Probably not. When the bar finished we decided not to go on to somewhere else. Hannah went home and Liz and I went back to Grace’s where we ended up talking about people’s handwriting and tattoos for about 1 hour oddly enough.
Sunday
Liz had stayed at mine again as her house is about half an hour from town and she lives in the ‘hood’ area of Rouen. Anyway we watched ‘Finding Neverland’ in French and then she left at about 1. I spent the rest of the day and evening in the apartment. This was the first evening we’ve all spent apart here. I kept my self busy learning or trying to learn French, and I cooked a risotto which….. actually tasted quite nice although I added more rice in at a later stage so some of the rice was still abit hard but still not a bad effort.
Monday
Well the girls and I all met at the fountain which is just down the road from me at 8.30 and headed off to the art school for our first day! We knocked on the office door and were welcomed in and offered tea by the English administrator called Christina. She’s been in Rouen for 11 years and said she could not speak a word of French when she arrived. She also told us an amusing story of how when she first arived she thought you were supposed to kiss everyone on the cheek so she leaned in to kiss the bus driver. I haven’t made that mistake but I keep either going to kiss the wrong cheek or bashing the person with my cheek too hard. Also I thought you were actually supposed to kiss people on the cheek but apparently you barely touch them. Oh well!
Anyway it soon became apparent that they didn’t know what to do with us. They assumed our exchange students would show us around but they’d already gone to Norwich to live our lives. The English lecturer and Erasmus representative at the school was due to arrive the next day. Christina gave us some tea and was greatful of the English conversation. She spoke of how she missed marmite which I of course related to. I have bought a little pot but I don’t have a toaster so I don’t know why I bought it really. Just a taste of home I guess. After our tea Christina kindly gave us a tour of the school. The school was built in 1213 so you can imagine how beautifully old and shabby it is. There are wood panels decorating the school, steep wooden stairs, an attic. It’s very small as there’s only 120 students in the whole school. The library has only 4 computers in it so Cecile should be happy with our huge library.
We couldn’t really do anything else that day as we needed to be assigned spaces which we presumed would happen after we’d spoken to the English lecturer. Alor we left and went to our favourite hot spot ‘flunch’ for lunch. I spent about an hour trying to connect my lap top to the wifi when it finally worked my lap top decided to run out of battery…. Rrrhhhh!
We had invited the Christophs over to Graces for dinner that evening. Grace cooked…brown rice and vegetables for dinner. The girls and I keep eating together and Grace doesn’t eat any wheat, meat, they’ve both given up cheese and chocolate so I too have become pretty heathy! Anyway it was a lovely meal. We played some guitar and sang wagon wheel to the boys, played some snap and some other game I can’t remember the name of. Then we all drove up onto a small cliff/hill and looked at a beautiful view of Rouen. It was absolutely stunning!
Saturday
Grace and I went to the laundrette and recited French vocab to keep us occupied. I’d imagine je suis, tu as, vous avez etc for an hour and a half became quite annoying for the woman in there with us. When we’d put our clothes in the dryer I noticed it was 10.40 and we’d arranged to meet Hannah(the final exchange student) at 11.00 so Grace quickly ran home for a shower and I continued to recite my French.
We met up with Hannah in town and showed her where the supermarket was. We then went out to a cheap restaurant called flunch which I can never remember the name of and keep calling it flunge for some reason . It does a healthy salad type buffet and lovely Pecon pies that we’re all addicted to. Anyway we’ve recently read a sign that it has free internet access there too so instead of paying 5 euros for an hour at the café, we can have some pie.
That evening we went to the Irish pub again and another group of people overheard us talking and approached us wanting to talk to us. It’s not even sleazy men, there were women there too. Everyone is just so welcoming and friendly and curious about us. Grace noticed that throughout the night one man kept moving about the room, looking around and writing in his book. At first we thought he was a critic or journalist and then we came to a conclusion that he’s a writer writing a novel. He was looking at us for a while and so I said to the girls ‘what if we’re the main characters!’ Probably not. When the bar finished we decided not to go on to somewhere else. Hannah went home and Liz and I went back to Grace’s where we ended up talking about people’s handwriting and tattoos for about 1 hour oddly enough.
Sunday
Liz had stayed at mine again as her house is about half an hour from town and she lives in the ‘hood’ area of Rouen. Anyway we watched ‘Finding Neverland’ in French and then she left at about 1. I spent the rest of the day and evening in the apartment. This was the first evening we’ve all spent apart here. I kept my self busy learning or trying to learn French, and I cooked a risotto which….. actually tasted quite nice although I added more rice in at a later stage so some of the rice was still abit hard but still not a bad effort.
Monday
Well the girls and I all met at the fountain which is just down the road from me at 8.30 and headed off to the art school for our first day! We knocked on the office door and were welcomed in and offered tea by the English administrator called Christina. She’s been in Rouen for 11 years and said she could not speak a word of French when she arrived. She also told us an amusing story of how when she first arived she thought you were supposed to kiss everyone on the cheek so she leaned in to kiss the bus driver. I haven’t made that mistake but I keep either going to kiss the wrong cheek or bashing the person with my cheek too hard. Also I thought you were actually supposed to kiss people on the cheek but apparently you barely touch them. Oh well!
Anyway it soon became apparent that they didn’t know what to do with us. They assumed our exchange students would show us around but they’d already gone to Norwich to live our lives. The English lecturer and Erasmus representative at the school was due to arrive the next day. Christina gave us some tea and was greatful of the English conversation. She spoke of how she missed marmite which I of course related to. I have bought a little pot but I don’t have a toaster so I don’t know why I bought it really. Just a taste of home I guess. After our tea Christina kindly gave us a tour of the school. The school was built in 1213 so you can imagine how beautifully old and shabby it is. There are wood panels decorating the school, steep wooden stairs, an attic. It’s very small as there’s only 120 students in the whole school. The library has only 4 computers in it so Cecile should be happy with our huge library.
We couldn’t really do anything else that day as we needed to be assigned spaces which we presumed would happen after we’d spoken to the English lecturer. Alor we left and went to our favourite hot spot ‘flunch’ for lunch. I spent about an hour trying to connect my lap top to the wifi when it finally worked my lap top decided to run out of battery…. Rrrhhhh!
We had invited the Christophs over to Graces for dinner that evening. Grace cooked…brown rice and vegetables for dinner. The girls and I keep eating together and Grace doesn’t eat any wheat, meat, they’ve both given up cheese and chocolate so I too have become pretty heathy! Anyway it was a lovely meal. We played some guitar and sang wagon wheel to the boys, played some snap and some other game I can’t remember the name of. Then we all drove up onto a small cliff/hill and looked at a beautiful view of Rouen. It was absolutely stunning!
Tuesday
Well we turned up at about 9.30, were sent to another building a few minutes away where Patricia (the English tutor) would be. She was very friendly and welcoming and gave us vital lists such as names of tutors and what they specialise in. We stayed in her office chatting for about half an hour and then she took us into a room full with 3rd student and asked us to go and on the table facing everyone. Horror! I was the first to go in to the room and decided not to sit on the table but to face them on a chair instead. Anyway Patrica spoke in both French and English and tried to get the students to ask us questions. She’s planning to have group crits in which the French students speak in English and the English speak in French. She also wants us to attend a debate next week where supposed to discuss French politics in French! I don’t think much is going to come from my mouth.
Patricia asked a few of the students to show us around the art school again to decide on an area space for us to work. Liz and I are going to be next to each other as it’s a very large space and space is pretty scarce. We’re working where Grace’s exchange partner normally works but because he’s been away for 3 months, the person next him has taken over the area. We left in a little note so hopefully he’ll move.
That evening we went out for a drink with Kevin, simon and Tattoo. Simon rents the apartment Grace is staying in and Kevin is his friend who also came over the first night we arrived. He speaks English with an Irish accent as his mum’s Irish. Tattoo is their friend from school. We went to The Irish pub again. We were mainly meeting them because Grace wanted to pay Simon the rent but when she asked him about it he just replyed ‘Don’t worry we’ll sort that out later’. He’s doing two placements in a row so is just staying with friends to bridge the gap.
Wednesday
We went to a group crit for about 4 hours. I didn’t understand 90 % of it. After this we had some lunch and walked around in search of paint. We didn’t find big tubes and want to wait until we do.
Thursday
Lecture for 2 hours in French on the brain, brain cells and a lot more French I didn’t understand. This was I think the most bored I’ve been since we arrived. The man had a monotone voice so I couldn’t really enjoy the sound of his voice either. Anyway we really want to start painting but there’s always things arranged for us so we haven’t had time to go and buy the materials yet let alone start painting. We headed back at around 6.
Before the lecture we’d been sitting in the studio and were approached by a guy called Abeeb. His English was very bad but he invited us out for a drink with his friends that night. At about 11 we got a call from him after lots not understanding each other on the phone, Grace just invited him over to hers to pick us up. Abeeb brought two friends Lucile and a guy I can’t remember the name of. As Abeebs English was as bad as my French I didn’t feel embarissed speaking to him in French. We sat around drinking wine. The guy with no name had brought whisky but had nothing to mix it with so when he said does anyone want any coca I naturally assumed he meant coca cola. Me and liz said ‘yeah!’ and quickly took back our enthusiasm when we realised he meant cocaine! We should have realised that’s what he was talking about as he looked like a complete drug addict, could barely string a sentence together and I think a bit of his nose was worn away. All the signs were there! Anyway he left soon after that. All night we’d heard a party going on upstairs so Abib suggested we go. It wasn’t do much a party as a little room with a few people in but Grace got to meet her neighbour. All in all a pretty strange night!
Well we turned up at about 9.30, were sent to another building a few minutes away where Patricia (the English tutor) would be. She was very friendly and welcoming and gave us vital lists such as names of tutors and what they specialise in. We stayed in her office chatting for about half an hour and then she took us into a room full with 3rd student and asked us to go and on the table facing everyone. Horror! I was the first to go in to the room and decided not to sit on the table but to face them on a chair instead. Anyway Patrica spoke in both French and English and tried to get the students to ask us questions. She’s planning to have group crits in which the French students speak in English and the English speak in French. She also wants us to attend a debate next week where supposed to discuss French politics in French! I don’t think much is going to come from my mouth.
Patricia asked a few of the students to show us around the art school again to decide on an area space for us to work. Liz and I are going to be next to each other as it’s a very large space and space is pretty scarce. We’re working where Grace’s exchange partner normally works but because he’s been away for 3 months, the person next him has taken over the area. We left in a little note so hopefully he’ll move.
That evening we went out for a drink with Kevin, simon and Tattoo. Simon rents the apartment Grace is staying in and Kevin is his friend who also came over the first night we arrived. He speaks English with an Irish accent as his mum’s Irish. Tattoo is their friend from school. We went to The Irish pub again. We were mainly meeting them because Grace wanted to pay Simon the rent but when she asked him about it he just replyed ‘Don’t worry we’ll sort that out later’. He’s doing two placements in a row so is just staying with friends to bridge the gap.
Wednesday
We went to a group crit for about 4 hours. I didn’t understand 90 % of it. After this we had some lunch and walked around in search of paint. We didn’t find big tubes and want to wait until we do.
Thursday
Lecture for 2 hours in French on the brain, brain cells and a lot more French I didn’t understand. This was I think the most bored I’ve been since we arrived. The man had a monotone voice so I couldn’t really enjoy the sound of his voice either. Anyway we really want to start painting but there’s always things arranged for us so we haven’t had time to go and buy the materials yet let alone start painting. We headed back at around 6.
Before the lecture we’d been sitting in the studio and were approached by a guy called Abeeb. His English was very bad but he invited us out for a drink with his friends that night. At about 11 we got a call from him after lots not understanding each other on the phone, Grace just invited him over to hers to pick us up. Abeeb brought two friends Lucile and a guy I can’t remember the name of. As Abeebs English was as bad as my French I didn’t feel embarissed speaking to him in French. We sat around drinking wine. The guy with no name had brought whisky but had nothing to mix it with so when he said does anyone want any coca I naturally assumed he meant coca cola. Me and liz said ‘yeah!’ and quickly took back our enthusiasm when we realised he meant cocaine! We should have realised that’s what he was talking about as he looked like a complete drug addict, could barely string a sentence together and I think a bit of his nose was worn away. All the signs were there! Anyway he left soon after that. All night we’d heard a party going on upstairs so Abib suggested we go. It wasn’t do much a party as a little room with a few people in but Grace got to meet her neighbour. All in all a pretty strange night!
Friday
The previous day Patricia had introduced us around at the lecture. We were just going to be introduced to the Lecturers but I thought wrong, we were presented to every single group of students we passed. Patricia was also looking for someone to take us to another building the next day where we would help the 2nd years put an exhibition. She found a girl called Marina who’s absolutely lovely. Anyway she stayed with us pretty much the whole day and we helped her put up her photographs. Patrica thought the best way of meeting people is when you’re doing something which is right.Went to Grace’s that evening where she cooked us a meal.
The previous day Patricia had introduced us around at the lecture. We were just going to be introduced to the Lecturers but I thought wrong, we were presented to every single group of students we passed. Patricia was also looking for someone to take us to another building the next day where we would help the 2nd years put an exhibition. She found a girl called Marina who’s absolutely lovely. Anyway she stayed with us pretty much the whole day and we helped her put up her photographs. Patrica thought the best way of meeting people is when you’re doing something which is right.Went to Grace’s that evening where she cooked us a meal.
Saturday
We spent the day getting jobs. We began at the laundrette where we took the guitar and gave passers by a renditions of Wagon wheel and American pie. We were talking about how we didn’t want to leave when the washing was finished and then Hannah had a brilliant that we could have our exhibition in there. We’re going to ring for permission. Shopping, we finally bought paints, a staple gun and canvas ulternative from a material shop. Canvas is ridiculously expensive.
Evening; We went out with Kevin and Simon again. Kevin met us in the square and we headed to Scottish pub where a friend of his would be doing some comedy which I of course didn’t understand a word of. Grace having given up or allergic to pretty much all food managed to get drunk on 1 beer. She was laughing in hysterics for all of the show so that was very amusing. After this Hannah spilt her drink all over everyone. We weren’t really making the best impression! We then went Cuban bar which was so cool, orange lights and stone walls. We had one drink in there where we showed our English side by downing a very small drink that was meant to be drunk slowly. Oops. After this it was about 2.30 but the night was still young…apparently so we went on to a club. All the music they played was English. On the way back a few people realised they’d left there things at Kevin’s so we went in to get them and ended up staying there until 7 in the morning. We played on the guitar and Kevin got his key board and we all sung Beatles songs. Another bizarre but good night …or morning.
We spent the day getting jobs. We began at the laundrette where we took the guitar and gave passers by a renditions of Wagon wheel and American pie. We were talking about how we didn’t want to leave when the washing was finished and then Hannah had a brilliant that we could have our exhibition in there. We’re going to ring for permission. Shopping, we finally bought paints, a staple gun and canvas ulternative from a material shop. Canvas is ridiculously expensive.
Evening; We went out with Kevin and Simon again. Kevin met us in the square and we headed to Scottish pub where a friend of his would be doing some comedy which I of course didn’t understand a word of. Grace having given up or allergic to pretty much all food managed to get drunk on 1 beer. She was laughing in hysterics for all of the show so that was very amusing. After this Hannah spilt her drink all over everyone. We weren’t really making the best impression! We then went Cuban bar which was so cool, orange lights and stone walls. We had one drink in there where we showed our English side by downing a very small drink that was meant to be drunk slowly. Oops. After this it was about 2.30 but the night was still young…apparently so we went on to a club. All the music they played was English. On the way back a few people realised they’d left there things at Kevin’s so we went in to get them and ended up staying there until 7 in the morning. We played on the guitar and Kevin got his key board and we all sung Beatles songs. Another bizarre but good night …or morning.
I'll add the photos tomorrow. I saved them along with writing and l'ordinator won't let me upload them!
My first painting.....
Friday, 22 February 2008
Ice skating and other things
19th
I’ve decided Tuesday is definitely my favourite day of the week in Rouen. It’s incredibly quiet on Sunday and Monday, too quiet so it’s lovely when the shops are open and there’s lots of people around again. Grace, Liz and I did a lot of shopping on this day. Too much. First of all Grace went to the laundrette where a man started talking to her and I don’t know why but she thought he was reaching in for a gun, which was in fact his wallet. Mean while Liz and I found a lovely boutique where I bought 3 tops. Following on from a chat Grace had had with her mum, Grace, Liz and I decided that we were too scuffy to fit in here and that in actual fact we were being rude by not taking on their culture. This is how we justified our shopping trip. It didn’t stop there however. I realised that my coat too was not very French looking and that had to be rectified immediately so I bought a beautiful long trench coat which would be a lot more money at home. When we thought ‘ok we look smart enough now’, we decided to go out that evening.
We decided to go to the bar Cecile had recommended a few days earlier called boite de bierre. It took us along time to find it as we had gotten confused and thought it was near the art school. We asked in a kebab shop, and a lovely man signalled straight onwards with his arms. After walking for about 10 minutes we decided to ask someone in a hotel. We found it eventually and I’m glad we did. It was a very quaint arty pub full with decorations, malabu bottles for lights and and suit hanging on the wall. I said to others that it reminded me of a caravan because or it’s narrowness but they didn’t agree. I learnt a few things that night. One is that apparently in France, other than a drink with your meal, only alcoholics drink wine after 5 o clock. This was after I’d drunk two glasses and it was about 10-11. Oh well maybe I’ll have a beer next time. I learnt this off a French man who’d over heard us speaking and wanted to practise his English on us. We keep getting this when we need to speak French! He had spent a year on Ireland and was very pleased that I new the expression ‘what’s the craic?’. He also asked what ‘How’s she hanging’ means? We told him it’s ‘how’s IT hanging?’. Anyway we spoke to him and his friend for about half an hour when some more people gathered around the table when they realised we were English. The first men started being very pathetic and swearing and making gestures at them in a ‘we were hear first you can’t talk to them’ kind of way. Very immature and childish. It was all very surreal. All these men fighting over us! Despite this we all went on to an exclusive club which they could not have got into without us. Grace arranged with one of them that we should all go and see the simpsons film with them the next the day. I don’t know why as we’d already seen it a few days before and I think she’d seen it before that aswell.
20th
After waking up pretty late I decided to go for a walk where you make yourself get lost. I ended up going around in a circle and returning home without meaning too. Grace and I went over to Liz’s house where Orida has left her with a frog and two fish to feed. Liz has said in the past that she’s scared of frogs so she’s not too pleased that they are her flatmates. We ended up playing the guitar and singing. I taught them a song called Wagon wheel so Liz played the guitar and Grace and I sung in harmony. We planning on busking one of these days.
We decided not to go to the Simpsons that evening but to go to the Irish pub again. Only one of the two men could come in the end as the other was stuck in Paris. These were the less immature second group from the night before. Pierre and Christoph. Well this was a rather awkward night. A lot of the conversations went like this ‘what did you have for lunch?’ ‘what did you have for breakfast’ ‘Can you do this’ and someone would roll tong. Fascinating stuff.
In this conversation someone had asked him if he liked sports to which he replied no but he didn’t mind ice skating. From this we found out there’s and ice rink in Rouen. We decided to go the next day. Grace got very excited about this.
21th
I do not like ice-skating! Christoph met us in the square and drove us to the ice rink. It’s in leisure centre with a swimming pool also, which we’re planning to go back to. As for the skating, it’s a lot scarier than I remember. For some reason falling over felt as scary as the idea of hanging off a cliff and falling 100’s feet downwards. The problem was probably I didn’t get it out of the way and fall. I just wobbled a lot! I felt strangely old when I said to Liz ‘how can those children look so fearless’ as 7 year olds skidded past me. Christoph on the other hand could not get enough as he whizzed around with a big smile on his face. He seemed to find the inner child in him and said he felt like he was 15 again. So that was nice. Grace says she wants to go back every week. Liz and I never want to go again.
After that we went to the little café upstairs for some hot chocolate where we watched a man being chucked out for smoking. He didn’t seem to listen as he then he ran off on to the ice rink with his cigarette. Just one of those things you can’t help but stare at. Anyway even though the conversation was still quite rigid and we find him a bit insulting when he makes jokes (I don’t know if it’s a language thing) he kindly invited to us to his house that evening for a meal.
A bit begrudgingly, because of the awkwardness of his humour, we went over to his house. I’m really glad we. He’s been very kind in taking us under his wing so to speak. He invited a friend of his, also called Christoph around too. He was much easier to talk to and had a sense of humour more similar to our own. He also pulled some interesting expressions which were very funny.
Christophs apartment was the smallest apartment I’ve ever seen. It was literally a bedroom with a little kitchen area to the side and when the bed was pulled back was a living room. We all huddled in and watched him cook an aubergine, pepper dish for us. We offered to help but he didn’t want any. After the meal we all went to le boite a bierre again. Love that place.
I’ve decided Tuesday is definitely my favourite day of the week in Rouen. It’s incredibly quiet on Sunday and Monday, too quiet so it’s lovely when the shops are open and there’s lots of people around again. Grace, Liz and I did a lot of shopping on this day. Too much. First of all Grace went to the laundrette where a man started talking to her and I don’t know why but she thought he was reaching in for a gun, which was in fact his wallet. Mean while Liz and I found a lovely boutique where I bought 3 tops. Following on from a chat Grace had had with her mum, Grace, Liz and I decided that we were too scuffy to fit in here and that in actual fact we were being rude by not taking on their culture. This is how we justified our shopping trip. It didn’t stop there however. I realised that my coat too was not very French looking and that had to be rectified immediately so I bought a beautiful long trench coat which would be a lot more money at home. When we thought ‘ok we look smart enough now’, we decided to go out that evening.
We decided to go to the bar Cecile had recommended a few days earlier called boite de bierre. It took us along time to find it as we had gotten confused and thought it was near the art school. We asked in a kebab shop, and a lovely man signalled straight onwards with his arms. After walking for about 10 minutes we decided to ask someone in a hotel. We found it eventually and I’m glad we did. It was a very quaint arty pub full with decorations, malabu bottles for lights and and suit hanging on the wall. I said to others that it reminded me of a caravan because or it’s narrowness but they didn’t agree. I learnt a few things that night. One is that apparently in France, other than a drink with your meal, only alcoholics drink wine after 5 o clock. This was after I’d drunk two glasses and it was about 10-11. Oh well maybe I’ll have a beer next time. I learnt this off a French man who’d over heard us speaking and wanted to practise his English on us. We keep getting this when we need to speak French! He had spent a year on Ireland and was very pleased that I new the expression ‘what’s the craic?’. He also asked what ‘How’s she hanging’ means? We told him it’s ‘how’s IT hanging?’. Anyway we spoke to him and his friend for about half an hour when some more people gathered around the table when they realised we were English. The first men started being very pathetic and swearing and making gestures at them in a ‘we were hear first you can’t talk to them’ kind of way. Very immature and childish. It was all very surreal. All these men fighting over us! Despite this we all went on to an exclusive club which they could not have got into without us. Grace arranged with one of them that we should all go and see the simpsons film with them the next the day. I don’t know why as we’d already seen it a few days before and I think she’d seen it before that aswell.
20th
After waking up pretty late I decided to go for a walk where you make yourself get lost. I ended up going around in a circle and returning home without meaning too. Grace and I went over to Liz’s house where Orida has left her with a frog and two fish to feed. Liz has said in the past that she’s scared of frogs so she’s not too pleased that they are her flatmates. We ended up playing the guitar and singing. I taught them a song called Wagon wheel so Liz played the guitar and Grace and I sung in harmony. We planning on busking one of these days.
We decided not to go to the Simpsons that evening but to go to the Irish pub again. Only one of the two men could come in the end as the other was stuck in Paris. These were the less immature second group from the night before. Pierre and Christoph. Well this was a rather awkward night. A lot of the conversations went like this ‘what did you have for lunch?’ ‘what did you have for breakfast’ ‘Can you do this’ and someone would roll tong. Fascinating stuff.
In this conversation someone had asked him if he liked sports to which he replied no but he didn’t mind ice skating. From this we found out there’s and ice rink in Rouen. We decided to go the next day. Grace got very excited about this.
21th
I do not like ice-skating! Christoph met us in the square and drove us to the ice rink. It’s in leisure centre with a swimming pool also, which we’re planning to go back to. As for the skating, it’s a lot scarier than I remember. For some reason falling over felt as scary as the idea of hanging off a cliff and falling 100’s feet downwards. The problem was probably I didn’t get it out of the way and fall. I just wobbled a lot! I felt strangely old when I said to Liz ‘how can those children look so fearless’ as 7 year olds skidded past me. Christoph on the other hand could not get enough as he whizzed around with a big smile on his face. He seemed to find the inner child in him and said he felt like he was 15 again. So that was nice. Grace says she wants to go back every week. Liz and I never want to go again.
After that we went to the little café upstairs for some hot chocolate where we watched a man being chucked out for smoking. He didn’t seem to listen as he then he ran off on to the ice rink with his cigarette. Just one of those things you can’t help but stare at. Anyway even though the conversation was still quite rigid and we find him a bit insulting when he makes jokes (I don’t know if it’s a language thing) he kindly invited to us to his house that evening for a meal.
A bit begrudgingly, because of the awkwardness of his humour, we went over to his house. I’m really glad we. He’s been very kind in taking us under his wing so to speak. He invited a friend of his, also called Christoph around too. He was much easier to talk to and had a sense of humour more similar to our own. He also pulled some interesting expressions which were very funny.
Christophs apartment was the smallest apartment I’ve ever seen. It was literally a bedroom with a little kitchen area to the side and when the bed was pulled back was a living room. We all huddled in and watched him cook an aubergine, pepper dish for us. We offered to help but he didn’t want any. After the meal we all went to le boite a bierre again. Love that place.
Monday, 18 February 2008
16th
Internet café. After departing the internet café> I’m sorry to say I made my first big mistake of the trip. I left the internet café in the hopes up meeting with Grace and Liz I’d been walking for about five minute, reached into my bag for my Rouen phone and could not find it. I assumed I must have left it at Grace’s house or in the bag with my lap top, which I’d handed to her earlier. So I decided to go home, use my other phone to contact them. They were in the peak of their shopping trip and told me they’d be home in about an hour. Back at Grace’s house I searched in a panic for my phone when Liz’s phone started ringing. On the phone it said Mary. I answered it and spoke quite awkwardly to French Man who had my phone. I’d left it at the internet Café. Disgraceful I know. So he agreed to keep the café open for an extra few minutes and Liz and I ran down the road to get it. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I alays seem to lose my phone and it always seem to get returned to me. I’m very lucky and need to learn a lesson.
That evening Liz and I went over to Graces for a meal. We had left over rice meal and salad. We sat watching rubbish on TV. Watching awful American reality teenage drivel programmes on MTV with ridiculously cringe worthy characters, has become a little ritual of our. It’s dubbed over in French so we’re hoping that it’s helping us with our French. But mostly we enjoy slagging them off. After watching four programmes back to back we decided that we were going a bit insane and needed to get out the house. So we went out to an Irish pub. People go out ridiculously late here we’ve discoved, even if it’s just to the pub. So we went out at about 11 decided to not drink to recover from the night before but when we arrived saying ‘deux vasse du vins blanc’ seemed like an easy thing to order. So we had 1 glass of wine. In the pub a French man had over heard Grace speaking, noticed we’re English and asked if she would speak to an English woman who had come up to him looking for any one English. I suppose she was homesick for jolly old l’anglais. As it happens her and her husband were from Essex so liz said she was from Canvey Island. There wasn’t really much to say after that.
Internet café. After departing the internet café> I’m sorry to say I made my first big mistake of the trip. I left the internet café in the hopes up meeting with Grace and Liz I’d been walking for about five minute, reached into my bag for my Rouen phone and could not find it. I assumed I must have left it at Grace’s house or in the bag with my lap top, which I’d handed to her earlier. So I decided to go home, use my other phone to contact them. They were in the peak of their shopping trip and told me they’d be home in about an hour. Back at Grace’s house I searched in a panic for my phone when Liz’s phone started ringing. On the phone it said Mary. I answered it and spoke quite awkwardly to French Man who had my phone. I’d left it at the internet Café. Disgraceful I know. So he agreed to keep the café open for an extra few minutes and Liz and I ran down the road to get it. This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. I alays seem to lose my phone and it always seem to get returned to me. I’m very lucky and need to learn a lesson.
That evening Liz and I went over to Graces for a meal. We had left over rice meal and salad. We sat watching rubbish on TV. Watching awful American reality teenage drivel programmes on MTV with ridiculously cringe worthy characters, has become a little ritual of our. It’s dubbed over in French so we’re hoping that it’s helping us with our French. But mostly we enjoy slagging them off. After watching four programmes back to back we decided that we were going a bit insane and needed to get out the house. So we went out to an Irish pub. People go out ridiculously late here we’ve discoved, even if it’s just to the pub. So we went out at about 11 decided to not drink to recover from the night before but when we arrived saying ‘deux vasse du vins blanc’ seemed like an easy thing to order. So we had 1 glass of wine. In the pub a French man had over heard Grace speaking, noticed we’re English and asked if she would speak to an English woman who had come up to him looking for any one English. I suppose she was homesick for jolly old l’anglais. As it happens her and her husband were from Essex so liz said she was from Canvey Island. There wasn’t really much to say after that.
A little while later two men (late 40’s-50) also overheard us speaking. We must have loud voices. Anyway their English was very bad and they wanted to know if we would help them with their English and in return they’d help us with our French. It took a long time for us understand each other. We told them that we are students at the art school on an exchange and they seemed to think that we wanted to teach them art. But yeah we’ve arranged to meet up every week, same time same place to help each other with our languages. All in all it was an enjoyable night. We met lots of friendly people and I’m glad we left the house and mtv behind for the night.
17th
The previous night we’d decided to go to see the Simpson’s movie at 12.30 the next day as this was the only time it was showing. We keep kept to our promise, picked up Grace and headed to the cinema. Of all things to watch in another language The Simpsons is pretty easy to follow. It was Sunday and no shops are open on Sunday or Monday in Rouen so we decided to head back to ours. It felt too cold to just casually walk without an aim. On the way back we noticed that the Cathedral was open for vistors so we stopped in for a visit. The stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful. A Japanese tourist started taking photos of us so we decided to leave.
Back at Graces we had some late lunch and looked through simon’s film collection and decided to watch Kill Bill, in French of course. Liz had arranged to meet Orida back at Cecile’s house so after the extreme blood and death in Kill Bill we went back to mine and awaited her arrival. She was supposed to come between 7-9 so the three of us sat there, playing the guitar and singing. It got to 10 o clock and we thought ‘where is she?’. She told Liz she was having problems with her bag and could she meet her the next day. Liz wanted to get the transition of houses ever and done with so it was quite annoying. Oh well.
17th
The previous night we’d decided to go to see the Simpson’s movie at 12.30 the next day as this was the only time it was showing. We keep kept to our promise, picked up Grace and headed to the cinema. Of all things to watch in another language The Simpsons is pretty easy to follow. It was Sunday and no shops are open on Sunday or Monday in Rouen so we decided to head back to ours. It felt too cold to just casually walk without an aim. On the way back we noticed that the Cathedral was open for vistors so we stopped in for a visit. The stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful. A Japanese tourist started taking photos of us so we decided to leave.
Back at Graces we had some late lunch and looked through simon’s film collection and decided to watch Kill Bill, in French of course. Liz had arranged to meet Orida back at Cecile’s house so after the extreme blood and death in Kill Bill we went back to mine and awaited her arrival. She was supposed to come between 7-9 so the three of us sat there, playing the guitar and singing. It got to 10 o clock and we thought ‘where is she?’. She told Liz she was having problems with her bag and could she meet her the next day. Liz wanted to get the transition of houses ever and done with so it was quite annoying. Oh well.
This is where i live
18th
Today I met Cecile finally! She’s lovely. She’s really friendly and I’m sure she’ll settle in fine in Norwich. I was extremely impressed with how fast she’d managed to back her bag for 3 months. It took her all of ½ hour when it took me about a day. I handed over my keys and all the information I could think to give her ie- taxis numbers and maps. Tonight we’re planning on trying out a pub Cecile recommended. Grace is also going to try and get a job there. Liz is going to Oridas tonight so I’ll be on my own. It’s a sad day. No I’ll be fine but I will miss her.
18th
Today I met Cecile finally! She’s lovely. She’s really friendly and I’m sure she’ll settle in fine in Norwich. I was extremely impressed with how fast she’d managed to back her bag for 3 months. It took her all of ½ hour when it took me about a day. I handed over my keys and all the information I could think to give her ie- taxis numbers and maps. Tonight we’re planning on trying out a pub Cecile recommended. Grace is also going to try and get a job there. Liz is going to Oridas tonight so I’ll be on my own. It’s a sad day. No I’ll be fine but I will miss her.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
the last few days
Yesterday day we walked to the train station, just so we can give people directions when they visit. We tried to remember the route that Cecile's boyfriend took us in his car on our first day but ended up just going around in a circle. We stopped to refuel with ridiculously cheap 30 cent pear juice from a supermarche. Kept on walking, following our instincts, as we were off the map. Eventually found a sign and then the station. We looked at the station, said ahh yes i remember being here and then came home. Oh i almost frogot we also stopped off at a pharmacy to get some mouthwash and floss for Liz as her tooth was hurting. It's ok now. What a fasinating blog i'm writing.
Last night we went out to a bar and club with two french men called Pap and Eddy. Pap had overheard Liz and i Speaking English when we were ringing on Grace's doorbell yesterday morning and offered to help us with our French. We thought.....we're in no position to be turning down friends so oblidged and texted him later. The night was...interesting. They knew very little English and as you know my French isn't quite up to scratch. We survived though. Despite the men thinking we were 'timide'. Liz professed that she'd only learnt french in her lunch break at school and new German better so they refered to her as the 'German one'. Grace was teasing them and then they accused her of being rascist despite her comments having nothing to do with skin colour. So she explained sarcasm to them. I was just just of as the tired one as i didn't really know what to say to them. Elle est fatigue!!!!
Today we havn't really done much. Grace and Liz are shopping for clothes at the moment. I'm going to meet them in a bit. Uploading these photos takes a long time so i'm going to do it another day.
Parle demain
Last night we went out to a bar and club with two french men called Pap and Eddy. Pap had overheard Liz and i Speaking English when we were ringing on Grace's doorbell yesterday morning and offered to help us with our French. We thought.....we're in no position to be turning down friends so oblidged and texted him later. The night was...interesting. They knew very little English and as you know my French isn't quite up to scratch. We survived though. Despite the men thinking we were 'timide'. Liz professed that she'd only learnt french in her lunch break at school and new German better so they refered to her as the 'German one'. Grace was teasing them and then they accused her of being rascist despite her comments having nothing to do with skin colour. So she explained sarcasm to them. I was just just of as the tired one as i didn't really know what to say to them. Elle est fatigue!!!!
Today we havn't really done much. Grace and Liz are shopping for clothes at the moment. I'm going to meet them in a bit. Uploading these photos takes a long time so i'm going to do it another day.
Parle demain
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
Rouen- day 1 and 2
Bonjour mon amis!
I'll start by telling you about the journey where every possible thing that could go wrong......went wrong! To begin with my luggage was much too heavy and i was being asked to pay an extra 70 pounds so i opened it up in the middle of Luton airport and handed half the contents over to ny dad. Thank you dad!After paying an extra 18 pounds, checking in and getting through customs, we wer'nt out of the water yet! Grace was given a boarding pass with my name written on it. With half 20 left before we had to board the plane, we rushed back and told someone behind the help desk.
Day one
I'll start by telling you about the journey where every possible thing that could go wrong......went wrong! To begin with my luggage was much too heavy and i was being asked to pay an extra 70 pounds so i opened it up in the middle of Luton airport and handed half the contents over to ny dad. Thank you dad!After paying an extra 18 pounds, checking in and getting through customs, we wer'nt out of the water yet! Grace was given a boarding pass with my name written on it. With half 20 left before we had to board the plane, we rushed back and told someone behind the help desk.
Day one Grace, Liz and I were greeted by a man holding up a sign, which has always been my dream. It said Erasmus on it not ‘Mary’ but it was still exciting. He recognised that I was wearing red, which I had arranged to do and came over to say hello. We carted our bags to Cecile’s boy friends car, where we crammed them in and got dropped of to our homes for the next three months. Liz is living with me for a week as her exchange partner Orida is working in Rouen for a week before coming to Norwich. My apartment is tres nice. It has lots of character. I feel quite sorry for Cecile as I cleared all trace of character from my room so she could have space. Oh well! So Grace went to her house which is a 3 minute walk from my house and Liz and I sat in my apartment feeling quite daunted, out of our depths and wishing we’d learnt more French before arriving. Luckily I bought a large supply of tea bags with me and tea is always the most comforting thing in times of distress so we went on a search for milk and other groceries.
Our troubles were not over yet though. More problems arose in the queue for the food. I had a bag of cherry tomatos that…..i had not weighed. The women tried to explain but I just stared at her blankly and then she asked if anyone in the queue spoke English. No one did. I left all my shopping and I walked back to the isle I had found them before deciding the tomatos really weren’t worth all this trouble so I left them. When paying for my shopping I was asked if I wanted a bag. Liz and I keep on getting really dumb founded when ever anyone says anything to us in French even we know what they mean, we just freeze and stare at them blankly. I’m hoping to stop doing this.
We brought brie among other things, settled in properly and went over to grace’s house. Grace had texted Kevin, a friend of simon (the man who owns her house) a few time so we decided to invite him round. We had a lovely evening playing cards, drinking wine and singing ‘American Pie’ which is one of the only songs I know on the guitar.
Day 2
We awoke and had pain au chocolate for breakfast. It was quite a slow morning as we didn’t leave the house until about 12.00 to meet Grace. We just decided to explore and be tourists for the day. First stop the Saint Ouen Cathedral. This was the first of our run ins with the police. It seems there is some sort of a conspiracy against us. They follow us around where ever we go. We were just taking photos there and Grace and I thought it might be fun to jump off a little wall and then 8 police men appeared out of no where. We quickly moved on. The next thing we did was buy our 3 mobile phones so we could all be in contact with each other. Our other phones only allow texting and were very expensive. This will always be place I made an idiot out of my self. I don’t know why but, from no where I came out with ‘merci pourquoi’- thank you why. I meant merci beaucoup. The sales assistant gave someone else in the que a confused ‘what a weirdo’ expression and smiled politely.
So we took our matching red phone which were a bargain of 30 euros and went to buy credit from another shop. We then proceeded to explore. I think the pictures speak for them selves. It’s absolutely beautiful here. It almost seem to too easy to take good photos as every where you turn is stunning.
We then went to the local supermarket and did a proper shop. Liz decided to cook dinner for us. She made a lovely lentil curry. Grace added to that with a chick pea dish. I poured the wine and promised to cook the next night. So we scuffed that down as fast as possible as we had planned to go and see ‘Sweeney Todd’ at the cinema at 6.30. It was in English but there were French subtitles which I’m sorry to admit, I ignored. After the film, which was very good indeed we went back to grace’s house and had some camomile tea. Very cosy.
Day three
We left the house about 10.30 in search of an internet café and to hunt out the art school. The first café we went into turned out to be just for people looking for work or somewhere to live. We eventually found somewhere and we had difficulty with the mixed up key boards and decided to write our blogs on our lap tops back at the house. There was also no assessable @ sign so Grace had the bright idea of typing in ‘at sign’ to google and with abit of copy and paste we were away. After Face book, myspace and such like had been checked our time there was done.
Our troubles were not over yet though. More problems arose in the queue for the food. I had a bag of cherry tomatos that…..i had not weighed. The women tried to explain but I just stared at her blankly and then she asked if anyone in the queue spoke English. No one did. I left all my shopping and I walked back to the isle I had found them before deciding the tomatos really weren’t worth all this trouble so I left them. When paying for my shopping I was asked if I wanted a bag. Liz and I keep on getting really dumb founded when ever anyone says anything to us in French even we know what they mean, we just freeze and stare at them blankly. I’m hoping to stop doing this.
We brought brie among other things, settled in properly and went over to grace’s house. Grace had texted Kevin, a friend of simon (the man who owns her house) a few time so we decided to invite him round. We had a lovely evening playing cards, drinking wine and singing ‘American Pie’ which is one of the only songs I know on the guitar.
Day 2
We awoke and had pain au chocolate for breakfast. It was quite a slow morning as we didn’t leave the house until about 12.00 to meet Grace. We just decided to explore and be tourists for the day. First stop the Saint Ouen Cathedral. This was the first of our run ins with the police. It seems there is some sort of a conspiracy against us. They follow us around where ever we go. We were just taking photos there and Grace and I thought it might be fun to jump off a little wall and then 8 police men appeared out of no where. We quickly moved on. The next thing we did was buy our 3 mobile phones so we could all be in contact with each other. Our other phones only allow texting and were very expensive. This will always be place I made an idiot out of my self. I don’t know why but, from no where I came out with ‘merci pourquoi’- thank you why. I meant merci beaucoup. The sales assistant gave someone else in the que a confused ‘what a weirdo’ expression and smiled politely.
So we took our matching red phone which were a bargain of 30 euros and went to buy credit from another shop. We then proceeded to explore. I think the pictures speak for them selves. It’s absolutely beautiful here. It almost seem to too easy to take good photos as every where you turn is stunning.
We then went to the local supermarket and did a proper shop. Liz decided to cook dinner for us. She made a lovely lentil curry. Grace added to that with a chick pea dish. I poured the wine and promised to cook the next night. So we scuffed that down as fast as possible as we had planned to go and see ‘Sweeney Todd’ at the cinema at 6.30. It was in English but there were French subtitles which I’m sorry to admit, I ignored. After the film, which was very good indeed we went back to grace’s house and had some camomile tea. Very cosy.
Day three
We left the house about 10.30 in search of an internet café and to hunt out the art school. The first café we went into turned out to be just for people looking for work or somewhere to live. We eventually found somewhere and we had difficulty with the mixed up key boards and decided to write our blogs on our lap tops back at the house. There was also no assessable @ sign so Grace had the bright idea of typing in ‘at sign’ to google and with abit of copy and paste we were away. After Face book, myspace and such like had been checked our time there was done.
When we’d left the café, we whipped out our maps, like the tourists that we are… for the time being and headed in the direction of the art school. It is absolutely stunning. We were calmly taking photos for about five minute until who should show up…about 10 policemen again. I hate the way they walk around in such large groups. It’s very intimidating. They are permanently watching us though! So we departed from there and decided to stop off in a café for some hot chocolate. This was very delicious but in very small cups. Liz and I then split off from grace. We listened to a learn French cd, recited it for about an hour and then realised we probably wouldn’t remember anything if we listen to it for too long so decided to learn it in small chunks and also by way of error ‘thank you why’. Tonight we are planning to go out to a bar and see where the night takes us.
Au revoir pour maintenant!
I will add the photos soon. I'm goung to bring my lap top in tomorrow.
Au revoir pour maintenant!
I will add the photos soon. I'm goung to bring my lap top in tomorrow.
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