roast chesnuts and very naughty children

The children of France have clearly not heard about Christmas being a time of good will and love. As it gets closer and closer to Christmas their previously angelic interest in how to recite colours, numbers and shapes in English is transforming in an obvious hate for school and general disdain for their teachers, including me. Getting a child to actually sit in their chair for an entire class is now as likely as me swimming back to England in 9 days time. My anger now seems to trigger fits of giggles whereas before it would leave them dumfounded and in complete blissful silence. But don’t worry Santa, I’m making my list, I’m checking it twice and most of my kids are naughty, and no longer nice!

However, some of my less obnoxious students have still managed to supply me with some classroom entertainment. In class last week I had to, ever adoring, girls ask me excitedly if I like ‘twoilet?’ Sorry? ‘ toilette’? (do I like toilets? What?) ‘TWIIILITT!!’...oh Twilight! Ah I see the sultry blood sucking chalk board that is Edward Cullen has even managed to melt the hearts of France’s six year olds. How delightful. Elsewhere, as I was trying to introduce a group to word order using shapes colours and sizes one boy managed to point at a chosen object and announce with a furious enthusiasm that is was in fact not a big blue circle as I was lead to believe but a ‘pig circle blue’.

And for the record, the lyrics to one of my favourite Christmas songs are now in fact ‘jungle bells jungle bells, he is in the way!’ Hilarious.

I once again spent my Thursday night in the company of the lovely Swiss-German family. This resulted once more in me and my housemate being gently forced into trying some of France/Switzerland’s less delicate fusions of fruit and what I can only believe to be petrol.

And that brings me to the weekend. Strasbourg was quite simply amazing. The lights, the smells, the cathedral! We arrived on Saturday at midday and went on to explore the contents of a million little wooden stalls. With the frost biting at our ears and noses we were often obliged to charge towards vin chaud (mulled wine) stalls where we would guzzle down beakers of Christmassy delight followed by warm chocolately gaufres (waffles). 

vin chaud

beautiful cathedral

le grand sapin

As the night descended the crowds multiplied but so did the atmosphere. Every street lined with vibrant fairy lights, filled with the smell of roast chestnuts and general festive cheer. Before heading back to the hostel (which in itself was quite the adventure as the tram decided to go on strike, shock) we went found ourselves a warm little restaurant where we watched people eat, but did not quite dare try choucroute (not sure thats how you spell it). Instead I chose a steak in mustard sauce and Caitlin daringly tried the local vegetarian speciality, roast potatoes with white cheese (which tastes a lot like nature yoghurt). Back at the hostel we met our roomie for the night, a young German who was training to be a gardener who works with disabled people, in a village where they all live, interesting. Personally, I found it hard to get over the fact that she was a spitting image of Moaning Myrtle.

The next day we explored the cobbled streets of petite france where I got attacked by a large rodent, whose name I cannot remember – see pictures. Terrifying. Before heading home we dipped into a small literary café called ‘La Tinta’ – which I highly recommend. The interior was charming and quirky and the food was delicious, a chose ‘Le Tartine au Chevre’ which consisted of good french bread topped with honey, almonds, a slice of pear and lots and lots of goats cheese. NOM. 

It was a perfect Christmas weekend, until our train decided to collide with ‘une personne’ on the track at Montbeillard leaving us sitting in cold darkness for three hours whilst the body was ‘désengagé ’, delightful. This meant that our poor housemate had to come and fetch us from Besancon on a very cold wet Sunday night, sorry Ben!!

And I think that is all I have to share. Italian is going well, got three dinner invitations and one dinner party to throw over the next nine days, and then I am very much homeward bound.