Au revoir Oullins !

Sim and I are moving ! No, not back to Aus (not yet !), but we’ll be bidding au revoir to Oullins and saying bonjour to Francheville in a few weeks. Francheville’s not far, it neighbours Oullins to the west and is just that little bit closer to work for both of us. In fact, I’ll be able to walk to and from work. Walking to work involves a big hill however, so to avoid arriving at school one big sweaty betty, it might be more practical (and less smelly !) to walk home.

We started thinking about moving not long after I got my new job. Having two wages (as meagre as they are !) allowed us to start looking for a bigger, lighter appartment with either a parking place or a garage (and a balcony, plus a seperate bathroom with a bath..!) with the idea of moving at the end of June/start of July.

Organising our papers to give to potential landlords made me think of getting ready for a visit to the préfecture ! Luckily I have an excellent boyfriend who was on holidays and had time to organise everything – papers, phone calls and visits !

Sim visited one appartment in Oullins, which at 40m2 wasn’t that much bigger than where we are now, so he didn’t apply for it. We visited the Francheville one together, loved it, applied for it and got it !

It ticks all the boxes, and more – 60m2, renovated, fully equipped kitchen (surprisingly uncommon for rentals in France), first floor, a little balcony, a seperate bathroom with a bath, a parking place AND a garage ! We’re moving a month earlier that we’d planned but never mind – the new apartment is excellent !

Now it’s time to get our little Oullinois appartment ready for show. We have two visits here tomorrow, so I must go – the vaccuum cleaner is calling me !

Bisous !

The lolly museum

I like lollies. The only thing I like better than lollies are potato chips, and I don’t know of a museum dedicated to those, so lollies it was when we visited the Haribo Museum in Uzés. Now Haribo lollies are by no means French, they’re German and date back to the early 1920s. The name Haribo comes from their founder, Hans Riegel, who was from Bonn (see what he did there ?). At the Haribo site at Uzés, you can find the museum, a boutique and a factory, where they make the delicious-smelling mint alcohol, Ricqlès.

It’s strange to not see a ‘u’ after the ‘q’ ! Or maybe that’s just me…

The museum houses all sorts of bits and pieces, including machines, examples of advertising through the ages, interactive touch screen games, vintage packaging and even clothing made out of lollies and lolly bags. In the machine room at the end of the tour, we inserted tokens that we’d received upon entry into the lolly bagging machines and watched as they bagged four mini bags of lollies for us. The boutique sells a wide range of souvenirs (postcards, magnets, books, tins, t-shirts and towels), mint alcohol, and LOLLIES ! Sim stocked up on Schtroumpfs (Smurfs !) and I on sour crocodiles. Miam !

Click here for more information about the Haribo Museum.

Bisous !

May I have a day off ? Or four ?

Yes, yes I can. This year, May has four public holidays.

• May 1 - Fête du Travaille
• May 8 – Victoire 1945
• May 9 – Ascension
• May 20 – Lundi de Pentecôte

I especially like how Ascension has fallen on the 9th this year. Not only do we have two holidays in a row, the 10th is a Friday and, as is common practice in France when there’s a holiday on a Thursday, most businesses are closed (including my school) to make an extra-long weekend. This year, it’s a 5-day one. The same can be said for when a public holiday falls on a Tuesday – most businesses are closed on the Monday. The French call this faire le pont, or make the bridge and I think it’s one of their better ideas.

As for this week, just to top it all off, it’s the first week back after the school holidays. A 2-day working week – good timing !

Bisous !

Southern sunshine ?

Sim and I headed down south for the weekend, a weekend away that was a Christmas present from my parents.

We left mid-afternoon and jumped on the autoroute just out of Lyon – along with all the northeners heading south for their holidays ! 100km and two hours later, things sped up a bit, and we reached out first destination, the Pont du Gard at around 7 pm. The Pont du Gard, a three-level bridge crossing the Gardon river valley, was built by the Romans in the first century AD, and is today UNESCO World Heritage listed. It’s amazing, and at 48 metres, is apparently the highest bridge in the Roman world.

We took the backroads to Nîmes, found and checked in to our hotel and headed out for a bite to eat. It was cool, and it had been wet, but we mananged to avoid any more showers in a cosy booth in a Café Leffe. Two meaty meals and buckets of beer later, we left to wander Nîmes at nighttime. The rain held off, and we visited the arena, the new Esplanade Charles De Gaulle and the Irish pub.

The next day dawned bright and sunny grey and drizzly, and after free coffees and general chit-chat at the hotel, we ventured out with our umbrella. First stop was Sim’s old apartment, from his student days in Nîmes. Next, the Jardins de la Fontaine. The gardens were built in the 18th century, on the site of a shrine dating back to the first century. The shrine was laid out around a spring, where the first Nîmois (well, a Celtic tribe called the Volcae !) settled two and a half thousand years ago, and the gardens are planned around it. On top of the hill overlooking the gardens is a tower, the Tour Magne. We climbed the hill, climbed the tower and then rested whilst feasting our eyes on the fantastic view !

The rain just kept on coming down, so we found a brasserie, ordered some lunch and holed up for a few hours – Sim watching a soccer match, me writing post cards. It’s a shame that we didn’t get to explore more of this wide, sand-coloured southern city, with palm trees and images of crocodiles everywhere, but to me that only means one thing – we’ll just have to go back another time !

Bisous !

Sun is Shining...

Reblogged from Pardon My French:

• 

The weather is sweet, makes you want to move your dancing feet or in my case go have a picnic in the park with some of my friends. The last two days in Lyon have been gorgeous and everyone has been out enjoying it, including me.

Jayde, me, Juliette and Asami (Denitza is taking the picture, but she's seated below with Asami)

Read more… 106 more words

Here's what we got up to one sunny day last week. Thanks for letting me reblog your post Courtney. Bisous !

My vie quotidienne

How things have changed this year!

I’ve gone from the full-time student life to the full-time working life in the blink of an eye. This is my daily life now, or ma vie quotidienne.

I get up around quarter to seven, faff around and leave the house at quarter to eight to catch the 8:04 bus down at the bridge (unless I have the car, then I leave around 8).  I have a 15 to 20 minute bus ride, depending on the traffic (though Lyonnais/e bus drivers are pretty good at pushing cars out of their way, and are usually on time !), then a short but very steep walk to school.

Getting ready for the hill !

I arrive, pick up my canteen register from the office and deposit my stuff in my room. I wet my blackboard sponge and fill up my drink bottle, say hello to the English teachers and kiss the French teachers.

The bell rings at 8:50, and the school day begins.

The morning schedule goes something like this: registration, day/date/weather discussion and handwriting, poetry, vocabulary activities, recess (10:15 – 10:35), more vocabulary activites, listening and comprehension activities and a quick game to finish up.

My little Frenchies hard at it !

I have canteen duty (12:00 – 1:00) twice a week, and yard duty (1:00 – 2:00) twice a week. Canteen days I eat after the kids, by myself, relishing the silence ! Yard duty days, I eat with the other teachers, stealing glances out the window and praying that it won’t rain !

One of many delicious school lunches.

The afternoon session starts at 2, and follows the same timetable as the morning session. The kids who were with me in the morning head off to the French half of their day, and the kids who had French in the morning come to me.  They have a snack at recess (3:15 – 3:35), and we pack up to go at ten to five.

The anglophone teachers have door duty every day, from ten to until ten past five. We greet the parents, make sure they are who they say they are, and send the kids home.

I have study hall duty four times a week, from 5:30 until 6:30, supervising the kids who stay at school to do their homework. Most of them finish by 6, so they can play a quiet game, read, draw and sometimes, if I’m feeling generous and they’ve been good, I take them outside for some extra playtime. At 6:30, they head off to garderie.

The school closes at 7. If I have the car, I head home any time after 6:30. If not, I usually hang around until 7 and get a lift home with Laurianne,  who supervises the kids until 7 and who lives in the building behind me. Handy !

It’s a change alright, but one that I’m enjoying !

Bisous !

Cours Elementaire 1

As my life has been totally consumed by work, so too shall my blog – at least until the holidays !

I’ve been working with my new grade, CE1, for four weeks now. They’re a normal, likeable bunch of 7 and 8 year olds. I have 16 students in my morning group, and 18 in my afternoon group. They all call me Jayde.

The focus for this age group is vocabulary. We work to a weekly theme, be it Easter, The Countryside or Spring, and base all of our activities around said theme. The kids do all manner of reading/writing/speaking/listening activities and are graded in terms of Very Good/Satisfactory/Progressing etc.

English is the only subject I teach, though I try to squeeze some respect/values/Being A Good Person stuff in too. History, Geography and Science are taught in English, just not at this level.

They’re a switched-on group, and I am continually (pleasantly !) surprised by how much English they know and understand.

They also know who Don Spencer is, what textas are and when arvo is !

Bisous !

The joys of immigration

I went to the préfecture last Friday afternoon. It was the last day of my holidays, and I had to pick up my new resident card before starting work again on Monday.

106€ and almost three hours later, I left with the little piece of plastic that allows me to live and work here for another year.

Yes, you read that right. Three hours.

For those who need to pick up a resident card, the préfecture opens at 1:00. I arrived at 12:30, and was 132nd in line. It closes at 3:30. If you miss out, you miss out, and have to come back another day. Too bad if you have other places to be, other things to do (like work a full day).

I tell you what, I was getting pretty worried by 3:00 ! Thankfully, my number came up at 3:20; I left at 3:21. Yes, really. I gave the fonctionnaire the receipt I received back in December, my old card and my 106€ worth of revenue stamps. I signed for my new card, which he gave to me as he wished me a bonne journée. Bam. Three hours of waiting for one minute of interaction.

Done and dusted – until December, anyway !

The only thing that didn’t work out was the date change – June 2014 instead of June 2013 – but December is just fine !

I am now looking at exchanging my Australian driver’s licence for a French one, which is also a préfecture service. Oh joy. I have to get my current licence translated, but on the positive side – the application is done by mail !

Bisous !

It’s been a while…

Well. It seems that working full time and keeping my blog up to date don’t mix !

I ended up filling in for Mrs Broken Ribs until the end of the term, four weeks in total, with 7 hours overtime per week. I rearranged my ten hours of tutoring per week by filling up my evenings and my Saturdays, and then I got the flu – just in time for the holidays. Of course.

It’s the mark of a good teacher, Sim’s brother (also a teacher) told me, to be sick during the holidays rather than the term !

I’m on the mend now, thanks to my doctor’s appointment  (which Sim changed for me, bless him), lots of bed rest and the fact that one can still easily buy pseudoephedrine over the counter in France !

Bisous !

First impressions

I’ve just finished my first full working week in Lyon. I started earlier than anticipated at the bilingual primary school, as one of the anglophone teachers took a tumble and broke a lot of ribs. I’ll be filling in for her for at least another two weeks.

The way the school runs is interesting. Each class of around 35 students has two teachers, a francophone and an anglophone. The class is split into two groups; one group works with the French teacher in the morning, the other with the English teacher. After lunch, they swap. I teach basically the same program morning and afternoon. On the French side, they follow the national curriculum. The English side is just that – English. Reading, writing, speaking and listening.

My days went something like this:

9:00 - 10:40 Class

10:40 – 11:00 Recess – 3 groups, two teachers on duty, the other in his/her classroom with the ill or the naughty.

11:00 – 11:50 Class

11:50 – 12:00 Short recess, teachers turn into waiters/waitresses and set up canteen

12:00 – 1:00 Lunch, teachers on canteen duty serve the kids their three-course lunches

1:00 - 2:00  My lunch hour

2:00 – 3:40 Class

3:40 – 4:00 Recess – same as the morning, except the kids have a snack

4:00 - 4:50 Class

4:50 – 5:00 Pack up, home time for some, off to études or garderie for others.

5:00 - 6:00 Supervised study for the primary kids (études), babysitting (garderie) for the kindergarden kids.

6:00 – 7:00 Babysitting all the kids who remain. The school closes at 7.

It was…intense !

Other teaching tidbits, good and not so good (some are as I understood them, and could be incorrect - most of these conversations were in French !):

• All times are approximate, as there’s no bell – you have to watch the clock !
• Lunch time yard duty is done alone, for one hour.
• We can apply bandaids, and administer medicine.
• Duty hours (canteen, yard, study hour, babysitting) are paid at a lesser hourly rate than teaching hours, and have to be entered on a different time sheet.
• We have 36 teaching weeks per year.
• We get paid monthly, and my monthly wage will be less than my fortnightly wage in Australia.
• We have very few opportunities for professional development.
• Teachers eat for free at the canteen, and teachers’ children learn for free et the school (they have to pay the canteen fees though !).
• Kids can start in maternelle (kinder) while they’re still in nappies.
• We have one and a half hours planning time every fortnight.
• The public and private systems are the opposite as to what they are back home in regards to resources and funding.
• I can’t work in the French public system, as I don’t have a French diploma.

I know I shouldn’t compare because it’s just so different, but I can’t help but feel that I was spoiled in Australia !

Bisous !