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| Definitely alive |
Life in Montargis has been carrying on calmly as ever - rather too calmly perhaps, and I admit I have had a few low moments in the last few weeks when the energy of student life and the constant buzz of London have felt all too absent... But not to worry, I was warned that the beginning would be difficult (I think of my three-week jaunt chez Julie as a reprieve from the real beginning as I didn't really have a chance to feel lonely) and I reckon it can only get better from here.
The beginning of the Toussaint holidays was probably the hardest few days as most of the other assistants had gone home (or to other exciting places) for the week, so there wasn't much going on. In retrospect, I probably should have made some exciting plans of my own, but I didn't really think it through. In any case, I made the most of the opportunity to get far too much sleep, watch the entire back catalogue of Misfits, and decorate my fridge:
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| My chef d'oeuvre |
After a few days of being a recluse, on the Tuesday I met the German assistant Christina and her friend Sandra in Orléans, which was a welcome break from the now all too familiar sights of Montargis. We spent the afternoon drinking coffee, window shopping, and having a crazy old man tell us the history of the Cathedral in very fast French. I think I learnt a lot, but it's hard to tell how much is factually accurate and how much is embellished from the gaps left by my brain's inability to keep up. So don't ask me for a tour. It also stopped raining for just long enough for me to take one shamefully misleading photograph of the Cathedral surrounded by crystal-clear blue skies. All in all, it couldn't have gone much better.
After relapsing to my hermit-like lifestyle for the Wednesday, on Thursday I made another trip to Paris to meet my parents who had arrived the night before. It was lovely to see some familiar faces after a rather lonely week, and I was thoroughly indulged (at least for the first 24 hours!) One slightly scary realisation though was that my level of French has now passed that of my linguistically gifted father, and it was a slightly odd role-reversal that for the first time ever my parents were looking to me to order in restaurants and buy tickets. Possibly even more horrifyingly, I managed to correct my father on a conjugation (and be right) not once but twice! 
The next day my parents were lucky enough to experience the Grand Tour of Montargis, including the magnificent Mazet praline shop and some unknown-but-certainly-significant proportion of its 130 bridges. They also got to experience the benefits office and the mobile shop while I took care of some administration - lucky them. Unfortunately, given Montargis' diminutive size, the "Grand Tour" lasted only a pitiful two hours even with its bureaucratic sideshow, so we went to see Tintin - that great francophone masterpiece - dubbed into French.
Having thus exhausted the delights of Montargis, Saturday found my mother and I back in Paris, Dad having elected to stay in his hotel room and read a book, much to his excitement. Thus Mum got to indulge her passion for taking woefully unflattering photographs of me with historic monuments in the background:
And I got to indulge my passion for Ladurée macaroons:
But I think the happiest person of all was Dad, because on our return every restaurant in Montargis was either closed or full. The sole exception (if you can call it a restaurant) was Quick, meaning he got to indulge his passion for dirt cheap processed meat, and cheese with high plastic content. So everyone was happy.
Before my parents left on the Sunday we went for a little walk by the Canal which was actually rather lovely. Cue this small advertising space for the Montargis Tourist board:
Then I showed them the Lycée, giving mother ample opportunity to take awkward photographs of me pointing at signs. Quel bonheur.
Even so, after they left I was worried that the lonely would come back with a vengeance, so I quickly availed myself of the best modern technology has to offer, and scheduled Skype dates with my uni friends, my brother and Rhi, all of whom cheered me up no end by wearing silly outfits, making silly faces, and improvising reflective devices so I could watch myself watching myself watching a video on their computer screen... or something. So thanks guys.
Anyway, that took me up till Monday, but the French (being a rather work-shy bunch) had no intention of going back to work till at least the Thursday... So I went on another little jaunt to Paris, this time to visit my school friend and fellow assistant Emily, and shamelessly tag along with the plans she'd made with her other much more legitimately Parisian friends. Inevitably it rained, as they say in French, "like a pissing cow" (such a beautiful language) so we spent an embarrassingly large proportion of the afternoon in Starbucks drinking tea (feel like I'm really getting a hold on French culture here!) We then ventured into an electronics shop, where Emily and I entertained ourselves for at least an hour with a children's touch screen computer - or more specifically, with its electronic parrot who repeated whatever you said, twice, at a slightly higher pitch. Capital of culture indeed. We managed to raise the tone by stopping at Notre Dame on the walk back to Emily's house for a grainy night-time photo shoot, and then staying up talking about philosophy until 4am. 
This seemed like a good idea until we had to get up to leave the house at 9ish - so when Emily asked me, as I was drying my still rain-soaked shoes with a hair drier, what I fancied doing with the morning, my answer was simple: coffee. Fortunately, being Paris, even this can be turned into a shameful photo opportunity - so we went to the Café where Amélie worked in that imaginatively named film "Amélie" for espresso and...Crème Brûlée. Standard mid-morning snack. Unfortunately, Emily managed to shatter a glass all over the restaurant, so we bolted pretty sharpish. Glad we took photos as we'll certainly think twice about showing our faces in there again.
We spent the rest of the afternoon guessing people's nationalities on the steps of the Sacré Coeur, trying to distinguish the pronunciation of "coeur/cours/corps" on a packed metro, and drinking "demi-pêches" by the Gare de Lyon because I had missed my train. When, eventually, I did manage board a train (having coordinated my and the SNCF's competing timetables), I got a call from the Spanish assistant Sara - her flat was full of fleas, could I possibly put her up for the night?
So "the night" at some point became "the week", and in fact she's just left to go and stay with her boyfriend for "the weekend" (it's France, the weekend starts whenever you like) before moving into her new flat on Sunday. Annoyingly, this flat just happens to be the same flat I was raving about on my first blog post in Montargis, that was so cruelly snapped up before I called. But then again, I didn't have to live in a flea-infested flat for 2 weeks either, so I'm not going to complain too much about Sara's good fortune. In any case it's been nice to have the company, and she's been a very lovely house-guest, buying me pain au chocolats in the morning, and doing my washing up before I get the chance! So it'll be nice to have her living round the corner.
Since Thursday I've been back at school "working" (hah). I ended up giving most of my lessons last week about Guy Fawkes night, which was pretty fun with my more enthusiastic classes - especially explaining what it means to be "hanged, drawn and quartered" with little diagrams on the board (and seeing the confused faces of the next teacher to use the classroom when I forgot to rub those diagrams off!) With my 2nde Euro class we even made a Guy - but I think we were all as unimpressed as each other with how he turned out. Talking about it all the time did make me a little sad that I was missing out on all the fireworks in England though, so on Saturday Christina, Sara and I watched V for Vendetta (or, more precisely V pour Vendetta) in French to mark the occasion. |
| Guy's new home |
In other news, I have managed to get myself a cushy €22/h second job giving private English lessons (although I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, so that could be interesting...) and I have started salsa lessons, 7 weeks after everyone else in the class. Which, incidentally, is mostly made up of my students.
Sorry for the bumper edition this time - didn't think I had very much to write but I guess I was wrong - I've even had to leave a fair bit out, so exciting has my social life become(!) Also apologies for the slightly self-indulgent pity bit at the beginning - I'm starting to feel better already but wanted to have an honest account of the year abroad experience. So don't worry about me!
Coming soon on Diary of a Rosbif: Will our plucky heroine's first private lesson be an A* or an F? Will Montargis continue to be unseasonably warm, or will she have to admit defeat and buy some gloves? And will she be seduced by a Latin lothario in her next salsa class? Probably not, but tune in next week to find out all of this and more.
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