Apparta'thon

Surprisingly, this photograph was taken this morning. It's really weird getting out of bed in the dark, and then getting to work in the dark as well...
This is the river taken from Pont Churchill - it is strange in a way to see the number of roads, buildings, bridges etc. named after English things...another one is Rue Black Watch. The echoes of the Second World War are still present in Normandy I would say, and it's very much seen on the map. The sun in this photograph is just beginning to rise, hence the colour of the photograph...rather than the deep blue of night, you get the royal blue of that bit just before sunrise. There are some perks I getting up early I suppose.

School started for me at 8am, with a one-to-one lesson with a quatrième INTER student who is struggling a bit compared to the rest of the class. Spent the hour trying to make her talk more English and then chatted for a bit about The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, the book they are studying for this term. Very interesting book, I remember enjoying it when I was younger as well.

The cinquième EURO were not very enthusiastic today to be completely honest. And were definitely not interested in Thanksgiving! Before we did anything on that, we had a quick discussion about 'My favourite vacation'. Here was where the different nationalities really showed...anyone with a British or French-French background took this to mean their favourite holiday, and those of an American persuasion took that to mean holiday celebration (e.g. Christmas). Every now and then you realise the difference between two countries who speak "English". Anyways, I definitely didn't really know that much about Thanksgiving until yesterday evening, and the students that I took were Anglo-French, Indian-French and French-French so cared even less! The film that we showed them about the story of The Mayflower also didn't enthuse them, as they thought it was patronising. Oh well, at least they behaved...and they said that they preferred my bit to the film!

Troisième EURO proved to me again why they are one of my favourite classes...I took four of the class to discuss Chapter One of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Problem Number One: the two boys hadn't read it! However this definitely worked to my advantage as I worked through the chapter part by part and we analysed it as a group. For fourteen, fifteen year olds they really do have some great insights and I was so pleased with them! Apparently the other group, even though they had read Chapter One, really didn't understand what was going on so I feel like I've achieved something today.

Words I have learnt today:-
- Turkey - dinde
- Goose - oie
- Duck - canard
- Deer - cerf
- Lobster - homard
- Clams - palourdes
- Oysters - huîtres
- Fish - poissons
- Corn - maïs
- Cucumbers - concombres
- Carrots - carottes
- Cabbage - chou
- Turnips - navets
- Radishes - radis
- Onions - oignons
- Beetroot - betterave
- Cinnamon - cannelle
- Nutmeg - muscade

So this evening was the apparta'thon...pretty much groups of strangers going to different strangers apartments and drinking their booze and eating some nibbles all in the name of getting to know each other. And what fun it was! Starting with apple ice-cream and Calvados in the same glass seems to be the best way to start a night!! Although I knew literally no one in my group, it turned out to be really fun, and I've made some new friends just from this one evening. I think my favourite flat was the one that served saussicon and rillettes on bread with beer and a drinking game! I didn't know until know just how many different types of flats there are in the centre-ville, makes me wonder whether to have a look and see whether there is anywhere more convenient that I can live! Not sure whether the "thon" part was meant to be a literal part of the evening, but our group definitely went at a breakneck speed. What fun though, always so nice to meet new people and I spoke in French for over 5 hours plus made new friends. What more could you want from an evening?!