Is it Christmas yet? If not, it feels like it should be.
I’m really quite tired as are the majority of my students. I’m not sure that
students in England would cope with the 8-17.30 school day.
The week before last, a few of us went to the Cirque de l’eau,
apparently Europe’s only water circus! It was a strange but very entertaining
show with clowns, acrobats, balancing acts and animals. I would really like a
sea lion. They seem like the kind of animal that everyone needs in their lives.
The next day I headed to Paris to see my friend Céline.
After an early start, I finally made it to Saint Lazare station where we met up
and went to Starbucks. Oh Starbucks, I’ve missed thee so! What followed was an
absolutely crazy day of running around Paris hitting tourist site after tourist
site and walking up seemingly every stair case in the city. We went to the
musée d’orsay and Louvre art galleries (I prefer the Louvre), the Christmas
market on the Champs-Elysées and Montmartre. We found a fairly quiet little
restaurant for dinner and had a much-needed sit-down before heading to Chartres
for the night. When we got to Céline’s place, we were greeted by her awesome
cat Lucie Fer. Lucie made me miss my own cat but she was lots of fun to play
with and slept quite happily at the bottom of my bed.
The next morning, we looked around the beautiful
cathedral in Chartres before it was time for a quick lunch and a train back to
Le Havre. The train from Paris to Le Havre was absolutely hellish and I was so
glad to be home when I arrived back in the city in the evening.
I’ve been to the cinema a few times recently. With
Natalie, Sam 1 and Sam 2, I saw the new Disney film ‘Les Mondes de Ralph’ or
‘Wreck-it Ralph’ in English. For me, this wasn’t quite as good as ‘Les Cinq
Légendes’ but I could appreciate that it was very well-made and I did enjoy it
a lot. I attempted ‘Anna Karénine’ (Anna Karenina) on my own – this was the
single biggest workout of my French since arriving here in September! That
said, it’s a beautiful film with good direction and wonderfully fluid scene
changes – I recommend it if you haven’t seen it.
I feel like I should have more to complain about but it’s
been a really lovely few weeks in France. The worst thing is that mum and dad
sent me a package which appears to have been utterly lost in the post. It’s a
shame because it cost over £10 to post and was full of English sweets to share
with my students but there isn’t really much you can do when you don’t even know
which country it’s gone missing in.
Vocabulary
I don’t normally do this but I have found a few useful
pieces this week so thought I’d share.
Dêpechez-vous!
is one I’ve started using a lot more in the classroom. It means ‘Hurry up’.
When you go for a coffee with
your lovely French friends and they say C’est
pour moi when you’re paying, they aren’t asking you if you’re paying for
them. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It means ‘It’s on me’ or ‘This is my
shout’.
Archi- means ‘ultra’, ‘so’ or ‘very’. I found this out this week
and since I discovered the meaning I’ve been hearing it everywhere so I think I
was just blanking it out before. It can be put in front of both positive and
negative adjectives.
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