Torture by Marmite

It's been a while since I last blogged, and I've done a lot in that time. I had 2 weeks of holidays and so I went to Lille with Natalie, and we had a great time looking around the (rather limited) attractions, getting drunk and eating burnt pizza. We came back to mine for a couple of days with the intention of seeing Valenciennes, but it was raining... so we stayed inside, drank more alcohol and watched C4 documentaries on Youtube. All in all a lovely first week. The second week I decided to go back to the UK, as there is so little to do in Aulnoye, and I fancied a trip to Sheffield. First of all, though, I had the joy of an 11-hour journey home, as I decided to get the bus instead of the far too expensive Eurostar. It wasn't all bad though, as I met some really cool people on the bus who are also on their Year Abroads in the area, and it ended up being a lovely megabus trip. However, when I reached London, I realised I'd forgotten my Oyster card, and so I had to face ridiculous queues to buy a ticket, all the while panicking I was going to miss my train. It all worked out fine in the end and I had a fantastic time with my family at home and people in Sheffield, although it barely felt like I'd had a holiday when I set off at 7am for the megabus back to France... armed with a whole suitcase full of things I felt I 'need' in France. (Yes, about half of it was quorn, but not all for me!) By the time I arrived in my final destination, I felt as if I'd had a full workout, but at least I had veggie Percy pigs to ease the pain. 

There was a point to all of this though: I wanted to show the kids in my school some 'typical' British foods. I did go out of my way to find the strangest ones: marmite (of course), crumpets, skips, wasabi peas, but I did bring things like malt loaf and ginger nuts which I thought might go down better. I definitely should have captured the kids' reaction to the marmite on video, it was so hilarious. They were shouting, making horrible faces, asking if they could spit it out or even be sick! I, however, was happily eating my marmite on toast and dying of laughter at the front of the classroom. In the end though, it was quite eye-opening for everyone- I became aware that the French really aren't used to anything at all spicy (which apparently includes ginger nuts) and it seems like food in the UK is generally a lot less salty and a lot less sweet.

Other hilarities in the week include when I was asking the 2 and 3 year olds what they wanted to sing next and they all just started singing Papaoutai and having to explain to 9 and 10 year olds that j'aime in the past tense is j'ai aimé or j'aimais... 

I also got up to some fun stuff this week- there was a meeting for all the Comenius Assistants teaching at catholic schools in Nord-Pas de Calais, and so we went around the Louvre-Lens with a super boring guided tour, got a free lunch, and a couple of us explored Arras (which is actually incredibly pretty). I also went along to a kayak club, as an idea of something to do with my Wednesdays, and it was really fun, although I did ache like nothing else all Thursday and Friday and wasn't even able to cycle to school. Yesterday I met up with Taz (who I met on the megabus back to the UK) in Lille and had a lovely lunch, so all in all I've been pretty busy. Oh yeah, and there's a new supermarket just opened about 5 minutes from my house, and I think that's where the whole population of this town were yesterday evening.... 

Illness, Paris and general highlights of life en France

Hey guys!

Much has occurred since my last blog, I was pretty much ill for the entire of last week but I still managed to make it to school every day. I was very proud of myself, although I did have every drug all the teachers offered me to help me through it... On thursday I went to the lycée with the oldest class in the school to do a science day, which was quite interesting- they did some fun chemistry experiments and me and the other teachers tried to compete with the kids to make a meccano car... we failed drastically, thought we managed to make it right but for some reason the motor didn't work. Clearly I don't have a career in technology ahead of me! Anyway it was a very nice day for me cause I have thursday afternoons off so I ended up doing no teaching, and managed to get over my illness a bit more. 

Friday was rather dramatic, one of those days where absolutely everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong... I started off leaving the house late, got to my bike and the chain had fallen off. 5 minutes later managed to fix it back on and set off, although I hadn't noticed how icy it was- the day before it had rained and it must have got very slippy, because I managed to fall off my bike. Wildly embarrassing, the first time I've ever fallen off on a road before and pretty scary. Luckily a nice man in a van stopped and took me to the fire station (no, I'm not sure why) but they seemed to be happy to fix me up and send me on my way. Did get a cheeky boost of confidence at the same time- the fireman asked me where I was from, and guessed Quebec! That's almost native! Anyway I headed onto school after being patched up, still fairly shaky, and arrived late in a massive state, although all the teachers were incredibly comforting and made me feel much better. Seriously, I feel like I've suddenly gained 4 extra mothers. Later in the day I had a mare photocopying and scanning, all my papers falling on the floor and such, but luckily I was heading to Paris to see the beautiful Natalie-Aston that evening which made me feel better. Headed off on my train, which was lovely and comfortable and arrived in Paris with no word from her... messaged lots and started to panic as it got later but in the end it was all fine as it turns out she was just late and her phone had run out of battery. Anyway, the day ended a lot better than it started, and it was lovely seeing a friendly face and speaking english!!

I had a generally lovely time in Paris, didn't do too much sightseeing but did spot the Louvre, the Seine and the Academie Francaise. Managed to squeeze in a trip to H&M and pick up some falafel so generally a successful weekend. We also went to a bar and had some ridiculously overpriced drinks but we followed it up with chips which, frankly, is the only way to end a night. The best part of the weekend was of course spending ridiculous amounts of time talking about ridiculous things with Natalie (we've already planned our next trip, to Lille and Valenciennes). At the end of the trip though, I was coming down with yet another cold/ sore throat. Seriously, these kids I'm teaching seem to be trying to get rid of me. Not fun at all.

Here are some photos of Paris (and me being a fool)

Anyway this week has started in an interesting way, done my second tutoring lesson with the husband of one of the teachers which is going well, and met an Irish woman, who works at the lycée. It was nice to have a bit of a chat in english and she said that I should ring her if I'm ever homesick and that she has lots of books in english, and that she has kids around my age so she'll get in contact with me. It's nice to talk to someone who completely understands what it's like- she said she came here way back when on her year abroad so maybe in years to come I'll come back here as a teacher... you never know! 

Having a joyous time anyway, and lots of trips planned for the future to get to meet more people and stuff! posfeb* everyone!

*positive february

Making friends and trying new things

Last week went a lot quicker than the first week- I think probably because I had more things to do. In the week I was fairly busy- went swimming Tuesday night with the daughter of one of the teachers at the school and her friends which was lovely. It was really great to be able to actually spend some time sort of messing about and not having to be an adult like I have to do at school the whole week! It was her 18th birthday as well so we partook in some of the things which you might usually do on an 18th...Plus I met them on wednesday in the afternoon and we went for a couple of drinks and played pool (thanks Vodsoc pool nights for making me not entirely hopeless) with another couple of their friends. I hope I'll meet up with them again a few times because it was lovely being around people my age!

At school we had an interesting experience on the Friday- we went to the nursing home which is fairly nearby to sing some songs we'd been learning over the past couple of weeks, and to give some happy new year cards to the residents. The kids did really well to sing the songs mostly off by heart, but it was a bit harder when it came to giving the cards... Some of the residents seemed to be pretty senile/ unaware of what was going on, some were sleeping and one person even ripped up the card in front of the girl who'd made it and given it to him. Needless to say she ended up crying, cause they'd made the cards over 2 weeks and put a lot of effort into them! 

The weekend was fairly uneventful, although I did manage to open a bank account (at the bank called BNP- I giggled inside about this), do my laundry for the first time (more expensive than I imagined-better buy more clothes), and finally pick up the courage to go to a proper boulangerie. I can assure you, the fear I might be kicked out for not being French enough was worth overcoming for the gorgeous croissants and pains au chocolat I got. The truth is, I've never tasted any pastries anywhere near as good!! (it's true what they say about the French). I also went to the gym which is in the swimming pool complex for the first time- it's pretty small and fairly municipal but it was good to get some exercise, especially seeing as the weather's been awful recently (and i've been eating too much French food). Towards the end of the weekend a sore throat started coming on and since then I've been feeling pretty rough. Made it into school today (partly because of the fear of having to call in sick for the first time in my life, and having to do it in French) and hoping it'll pass but I am a bit scared because some kids in the school have had the flu, and just overheard that one has meningitis?!!? 

Wish me luck, et à bientôt. 

My first week of teaching

This first week has been pretty crazy- so much going on and so much that's new to get used to. I've been very lucky, however, people have been incredibly friendly towards me, whether it's the teachers at the school, or the girls who i'm living with, or even my landlady (who's been sympathetic to the fact my Comenius grant got messed up and only arrived yesterday!). I've felt very welcome here very soon, and although it is a very small place and there isn't an awful lot to do, I appreciate the amount of French I've been able to speak. Most people here don't speak any english, or a very minimal amount, so all the conversations I've had have been in French. I only speak English whilst I'm teaching, and then I have to do a lot of on-the-spot translation into French so the kids understand; they really don't speak much English. I guess that's to be expected though- especially considering the teachers don't speak English much themselves. Plus the end of this week I had to help out in a French reading and comprehension class, which was pretty tricky, because I had to try and help the little French kids in their own language, explaining words I didn't fully understand myself... It's pretty challenging but I do love seeing the kids achieving something themselves. 

I've also been shocked by the differences between the French and the English education systems- here kids start school, proper school, at 2 YEARS OLD! It seems insane, and (as far as I can tell) they have a full school day like the other children in the school. Some of them do have a nap in the afternoon I think, and some do go home at lunchtime. They have been the trickiest children to teach, as most of them sort of look at me wide-eyed, saying nothing, either in French or English!! I've had to try lots of different techniques to get them to say anything- songs, reading them a book with flaps, and they've still been pretty quiet. I guess they just have to get used to me. The other thing that's very different about the system here is that the children are very used to everything being incredibly formal- no games, no fun, just sitting down, listening and writing. That's pretty difficult to get used to and the kids have a lot of unused energy, so they do get told off a fair amount for 'messing about'. I'm going to try and break down that formal aspect and get the kids to have fun with English, because i reckon that's one of the best ways to learn. I have many games, songs and activities up my sleeve- i'll let you know how they go!

I'm appreciating something which is great about France too- despite what I thought last time I came here, it isn't too bad for vegetarians... in comparison to Russia!! They have houmous, lentils, couscous, quinoa, tofu, pulses, all in my local supermarket. The only downside is that to get quorn I had to go to Belgium (don't worry, only 20km down the road). Plus, in Belgium, I found proper alpro soya milk, heinz beans, speculoos and speculoos spread and really cheap proper belgian waffles. I'm also benefitting from some pretty cheap accommodation- only around £240 a month for my room with a kitchenette and shared bathroom, which includes electricity, heating, water, all the bills. The only downside is that the internet is a bit of a minefield but *fingers crossed* i've got it figured out finally! 

The only thing I've gotta sort out now is trying to find something to do with all my time (I have wednesdays and thursday afternoons off, and the girls in my house go home every weekend) so I need to find some friends/ activities... this may be harder than it sounds considering the population of this tiny 'town'!! I did go to a choir with a lovely teacher from my school this Friday (the same one who gave me a lift to Belgium) which was good fun- although most of the songs were 80s french hits... and they sing without music so it was pretty tricky! 

All in all, I'm having loads of fun, and living here really is a very interesting experience- and very different to the one I had in Petrozavodsk!

A very overdue update....

Ok so I'm not going to lie; I have not updated in ages, clearly because I've been having too much fun :P I think the problem started around reading week, when I had a lot of news to talk about and I basically never got round to it. The short version I'm going to give you is that I went to St Petersburg and Moscow, it was amazing, I saw lots of lovely churches, buildings, museums etc and had a generally enjoyable time immersed in capitalism at its best and most shockingly expensive. Anyway, I finished my time in Petrozavodsk, having a lot of fun with all the amazing people I was there with, and we did many more ridiculous walks, went out on the classic thursday night and had a final night train back to St Petersburg after which we went home (finally)! 

Anyway I guess the thing everyone cares about now is France. Christmas went crazy fast and that was totally unexpected- I barely had time to think before I had to get back to packing and organising (it now transpires I probably should have taken a lot of things I haven't). I arrived yesterday, via Eurostar, which was a lovely easy experience and about 10x better than flying. I turned up in Aulnoye-Aymeries, which is around 20km from the Belgium border, and is a small town next to Berlaimont, the village where I'll be teaching. I got picked up by the teacher who is basically tasked with looking after me (helping to find somewhere to live, organising my timetable etc) and she took me to my accommodation where we met the landlady. I have a room with a kitchenette and sink and I share a bathroom with 3 french girls who are also students but were typically away at the weekend so I haven't met them yet! Anyway, the teacher then showed me the way to the school, and offered to take me to the supermarket as on Sundays (very infuriatingly) not even the supermarket is open, and shops are only open in the morning if at all. In the evening, she offered to take me for dinner, for the classic "specialité du Nord"- les frites! It was lovely, and her and her husband very kindly paid for it! I will also be lucky enough to have free lunches every day I'm at work, which is really amazing. 

I did find it a bit difficult diving straight back into speaking French, and I definitely haven't done as much of it as I should, but apart from a couple of slips of Russian (потому что and только kept trying to sneak in) it's been pretty good. I embarrassingly managed to forget my ticket when I bought it at the station, and forgot the word for sheep, but other than that I've had no choice but to speak and listen to it a lot. I have a television in my room too, which is great to have on in the background, and it's a very good way to keep up to date with stuff and get French in your head. Anyway, I'll shut up now. I'm having fun already, and settled in if anyone cared- i'm sure i'll be bored enough in this little town to keep updating more often :P 

A bientôt

Living in the land of no internet, crazy lake walks and excitable Russian girls

So I’m currently writing this with no internet- shocking I know. The last 2 days I’ve come home to no internet- yesterday there was a power cut, and today for some reason the internet just isn’t working- Vanya (the 9 year old) said something about it not having been paid for… oops. So with this lack of internet, I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Yesterday I did my homework and then read the entirety of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- even when the power came back on I was too gripped to stop. I actually forgot how joyous it is to read a book without having to think about ANY of the words!  Today I branched out- started reading преступление и наказание but had quite a lot of difficulty without a dictionary- I think it’ll actually be better to start when I have the internet, my dictionary is literally pocket-sized. Anyway after that I moved onto one of my books I got free courtesy of the Hamburg Zentrale für politische Bildung (Centre for political education)- called Das Jahr 1933- Der Weg zur Hitler Diktatur (The Year 1933- The way to Hitler’s Dictatorship). It was only 75 pages and was pretty interesting. I have to say I’m glad my German’s still up there and I didn’t need a dictionary at all :D Problem is that I definitely didn’t plan for a loss of internet, so I only have 1 more English book and a couple of little German ones, again free from Hamburg! Also my USB stick has broken, so I only have Game of Thrones on my computer left to save me from boredom. I hope the internet is back soon….

Anyway, more interesting things. Last week it was Vanya’s birthday so I was told I had to be home at 8 o clock for cake and other festivities. Turns out that this involved a lot of toasting, a lot of wine and cognac and a lot of nibbles and cake. Also, I got roped into sorting out his new phone, getting the internet set up, making him a google account…. Since then I’ve been asked to show him which games to play. I didn’t even know where to start, just showed him the Play Market and let him do his own thing.  He proceeded to download a shooting game. Классически.

At the weekend we had another night when I got home at 7.30am… need this to stop becoming a habit. We sat in a café, Kivach, for an hour or so at like 6am and there were so many people STILL ordering beers. One guy was told by the staff that he had ‘достаточно пил’ (drunk enough) and that he would have to have ‘чай или кофе’ (tea or coffee). I feel like all the people there drinking probably needed telling this.

Robin and Harry throwing rocks at rocks

On Saturday we then met at Moscow Café at 2pm to discuss reading week- it took quite a lot of time and a lot of changing opinions but we managed to book one hostel and I think we’ve got a few concrete plans sorted. We also looked up hostels for this weekend in St Petersburg- YAY! We also planned an exciting trip for Sunday- a mammoth walk around the lake- and planned to meet at 10am outside uni (only 15 mins later than a weekday). The lake walk was incredibly joyous. We literally just walked down towards the lake, sticking on the main roads at first but then moving on to the beach, where I learnt to skim stones (very proud of myself) and Robin and Harry threw rocks at rocks for about 40 mins. We also saw some ostriches, found an amazing bit of beach with pedalos and even some sort of slide into the lake (although apparently swimming was forbidden). We trekked so far around the lake that we ended up in a bit of forest which had a rope swing in it, and almost to the other part of Petrozavodsk on the other side of the inlet. It was a very joyous day, and I walked out we walked about 14km in all- we bailed and got the bus back, after all Maddy did have a piano lesson. Unluckily the bear count is still 0, but I did fall into the lake a bit and get covered in algae.

On the peninsular where I fell in the lake

Today we had a very interesting day- we went to a school to do presentations about England-  I did one about British food. It wasn’t that easy to find the school though… we didn’t have internet. Or the name of the school. Or the road the school was on. Or a phone number for the contact. After asking in about 3 other schools, we finally found the one we needed- even though we were 40 minutes late! It was great eventually, we were greeted with applause, and they really loved our presentations. They also did some amazing renditions of Let it Be, Imagine and Hallelujah. After the presentations, they insisted we write all our names down so they could find us on Vkontakte or Facebook and that we took a photo with them outside the school. I think when I finally get internet back I’ll have like 10 friend requests from teenage girls….

Anyway it’s been a very interesting week and I expect to be able to update you again soon after my trip to St Petersburg!!!

Update on internet: obv I had some to post this but it's being pretty temperamental. 

Staying up until 7am and ALL the chickpeas

Firstly, apologies to anyone who was hoping to catch up on my life- I am aware I haven't blogged in a while. Do not fear- I have NOT been kidnapped in Russia!

Anyway, I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks, generally going out and drinking ,whether it's a couple of cheeky beers which got out of hand after the addition of jager or a birthday bash which meant staying out till 7am and then on an excursion. 

So, last week-ish we all decided to go out on a thursday night to have some beers in a 'German' pub, we bought 3 containers of 7 beers and then events such as this occurred: 

(to confirm I am not actually being punched)

And somehow I ended up missing the next day of uni. Luckily, my host took in the money for the excursion on the Sunday for me and treated me like an invalid the whole day... which I repaid by going to Sigmund Freud!!! Crazy times ensued, including very daring things such as balancing a road sign against a car and considering climbing other road signs. We also had an almost-fight on the street corner and then eventually went off to bed. 

The next day we had to meet with the rep from St-Petersburg, Grace, so we had to get to uni by 9.45  = 5 hours sleep. Turns out it was just our teachers deciding to cause us pain and that she was staying in Petrozavodsk until 10 that evening so we hung around in town for a while. Later, quite a few of us went out for some drinks for Gonca's birthday and then headed to a club. Because the people who stay in the общежитие can either go back before 1 or after 6, we decided we were going to stay out till 6... We consumed a considerable amount of vodka and much bonding occurred. Because I had to go on the excursion the next day, I left at 7, walked home, ate some каша and went back to uni to catch the bus (still slightly drunk) to Ruskeala which is a gorgeous marble quarry, half filled with water. It was super rainy though, which was a shame but still a lovely day despite only having 2 hours sleep on the bus. 

Ruskeala

The next week we decided we were going to go for a walk in the woods just outside Petrozavodsk, by following the river out of the city and trying to find a bear. Harry said he'd give anyone 50 kopecks if they got a photo of one and 1 ruble if they got a selfie with one. Unluckily, we didn't find a bear, but we did have a fun jaunt out of the city and found some decent woods. 

Later this week, we also had a night of british comedy, which ended up being 10 people coming to my house, watching 2 episodes of peep show and eating the amazing spread my host gave us- biscuits, jam, tea, coffee, chocolate, sweets. It was a really good night, and my host said that everyone was welcome another time- which is amazing!! On friday we had an amazing 'international food night'- with spanish omelette, italian pasta, austrian salad, pancakes and smetana, trifle, turkish stuffed peppers, and- wait for it- beans on toast. We also drank from a keg in the street just outside of the общежитие and risked Gonca and Saskia getting kicked out... Luckily it didn't happen! We headed on to Sigmund Freud, as usual, and when that closed, we went to a place called begemot (I think) and we were the only people in the place dancing but we honestly didn't care. We left around 6.30 when Armin had to head home, and we were wanting to go to McDonalds, but it was closed inside, and then some guy followed me after deciding he liked the look of me and tried to convince me to have one of his milkshakes. Needless to say, I didn't like the look of him and I did not have his milkshake. We finally ended up home after catching a bus which was super lucky so early in the morning!

Goodbye photo for Armin! (6.30 am)

Today we also had a massive achievement- after buying a potato masher in the week, Eva and I managed to make falafel and houmous (it did take about 4 hours but it was SO worth it!) we're looking forward to improving our recipe and turning it into a nationwide business in Russia!!

Amazing falafel!!!

So, as the Russians say, увидемся (=we will see each other)