The park that gives on giving

I know I've said it before, but I heart the park.

To recap, not only is there:
- Pretty olive trees
- Old men playing petanque
- Genu-ine Roman ruins
- An archaeology museum
- The Matisse museum
- A pretty church with a mummified corpse in it
- A Franciscan monastery with museum (which I haven't been into yet)

But I discovered on Saturday that there's also an old graveyard with (partial) sea views, and a 17th century monastic garden which houses Matisse's tomb (all by itself) and is wonderfully peaceful and deserted. Strictly speaking, I suppose the church, monastery, graveyard and garden aren't really part of the park, but they're right there behind it, so I'm counting it. And making this wonderful park of splendour officially my favourite place in Nice. And it's just down the road and everything! Good show, park!

The only other thing of note to report is our little dinner party on Saturday night - the 3 flatmates and 3 other American assistants. We dined splendidly, thanks to Emily, resident chef, and a good time was had by all. Our neighbour (the quiet, religious man - he does exist) came round to complain at 10.30, which, in my opinion, is pretty ridiculous. Even if you're quiet and religious, you should be able to put up with 6 girls talking at 10.30 on a Saturday night. No loud music, it wasn't a party, and they were gone by 11.30. Honestly, if you can't get up to that sort of mild fun, what can you do? Oh yeah, hammer/drill away continuously all day from 9 am on weekends, and whenever you knock off work during the week, yeah I'm looking at you, upstairs neighbours. However, in the defense of the religious gentleman, I must admit that the girls were VERY loud talkers. Not all of them, but enough for it to rachet up the decibels considerably. And yes (please close your ears to this piece of bigotry, my American friends) when complainerson came to the door I said to him "I'm sorry, they're Americans" and he just nodded sagely as if to say "I quite understand". Ha ha ha! I'm sorry, but yeah, as a sweeping generalisation, you guys is loud, aiight?

Armistice Day

Today was another public holiday, unfortunately same old for me as I don't work Wednesdays anyway. The buses were flying little French flags though, which I thought was cute. For fairly obvious reasons, they're pretty obsessed with the world wars here. Every town, big or small, has its war memorial. My school alone has two war memorials (!) which were draped with flags yesterday - apparently there was a remembrance ceremony in the morning, but I didn't make it along. Coincidentally, I had to say the word 'Vichy' in a dictation to a class yesterday. So I mispronounce one French word (which like pretty much every place name in French, turns out not to conform with the norms of French pronunciation (well, at least in my probably inaccurate book) - rhymes with fishy, who knew?) and that's license for the class to crack up like it's the most hilarious thing ever. But it's okay for zem to talk laike zeees...

So anyway, after my laundry was done I ventured out into what was another gorgeous, warm day. Ahhh, I really am lucky to live on the Cote d'Azur :) Whenever I see the weather on TV there's pretty much three bands - rain in the north, cloud in the middle, and sunshine down here! I mean, Nice has its off days too, but overall it's pretty sweet. I headed down to the park and finally managed to find the archaeological museum hiding in a corner that I never knew existed. It was free (yay) and practically deserted, which are always plus points. It wasn't the most exciting place I've ever been, but it was pretty interesting to see the exhibits and photos of archaeological digs and reconstructions of buildings etc. etc. and know that they were actually from right here where I live. From the looks of it, the Roman settlement up here (called Cemenelum, presumably the origin of the suburb's name - Cimiez) was a pretty happening place, with an amphitheatre, pretty extensive baths, graveyards (yeah, those count as 'happening') and later a Christian basilica. Photos and so forth here.

The best bit is that you can walk through the museum and out into the ruins (those that aren't currently being restored) and just walk all around the site. I hadn't actually realised you could do this - from the park, you can only vaguely see them from behind a fence and trees, so it was a nice surprise, and very peaceful and pleasant on a lovely day like today. I definitely think my Dad would enjoy a walk around here, so that's another thing on the itinerary :)

Oh and there was a sarcophagus inscribed something along the lines of 'to my beloved husband Marcus, the best of men, with whom I lived for 20 years, 8 months and 9 days' which I thought was very touching. Also another one that was to 'our daughter, who died prematurely at the age of 19'. It's funny how difficult it is sometimes to realise that people in those days could marry for love and do things like count the days of their relationship, or that despite the high mortality rates, they could still consider dying at 19 as 'premature'. I suppose that's the real value of museums like this - they offer a small window into the past which somehow manages to make it so much more concrete and immediate than it would be if you read it in a book (or on my blog I suppose...) Semi-appropriate for Armistice Day then - remembering all the dead of Cimiez today.

Look, I did something!

So gave myself a stern talking-to for my inactivity over the holidays, which resulted in me walking up to the cemetery on the hill overlooking Old Town and the Baie des Anges. Luckily, last Friday was warm and sunny and gorgeous - unlike the last few days - the walk was pleasant and the view was GORGEOUS. Will definitely have to take the fam up on a nice day when they come to visit. You can see the whole sweep of the bay, with the calm Mediterranean Sea looking like someone has spilt a bucket of bright blue paint on a mirror. In the other direction, the red roofs of Old Town stretch out (well, for a short distance) before you, and then there are the hills behind (couldn't really work out where my house was, sense of direction = poor, as Ranch would agree).

Up the top of the hill are a lot of walking trails, park-y type spaces, a pretty cool man-made waterfall, and some ruins of the old castle and fortifications which once defended Nice. Supposedly this is the oldest area (some pretty old prehistoric remains have been found) along with the Greek/Roman ruins near my house. Makes sense since it's a pretty strategic position with the view across the bay etc.

There's also the Jewish and Christian cemeteries, which are pretty cool, especially the Christian one since that has more fancy statues. Plus I found one section which is like a street map of Nice brought to... um, life... All the big names - Medecin, Malaussena, Grosso, Pastorelli. Would be interested to know who some of these people were and what they did to deserve streets named after them and being buried in the special section of the cemetery. There was also Garibaldi's grave (not with the Nice bigwigs) which was pretty cool as far as grave-spotting goes. He must have been so gutted that Nice didn't wind up as part of Italy. Sucks to be you eh Garibaldi? Hmm I actually just Wikipediad him and turns out his grave is not in Nice, they just for some reason put a monument to him amongst the other graves, in a graveyard, which looks exactly like a tombstone. Oh well, whatever.

The only other thing of note that happened while I was up the hill was the 12 o'clock cannons going off. These fire twice every day at (duh) 12 o'clock. If you're alert, you can hear them from my house and presumably all over the city, but day-ummm, they are LOUD from the vantage point of that hill! Luckily enough I had heard the church bells a second before and knew they were about to fire, because I'm trying to cultivate an air of insouciance in the face of cannonry, in order not to jump and look like a dick/tourist whenever they go off.

Nothing else interesting to report (how could I top that story?) Had my first 8 am class today, wasn't too bad, it was one of the easy ones where I listen and critique their speaking. TWO of my classes are now cancelled tomorrow, leaving only one. Sah-weet! Will try to motivate myself again to get out and do something, even though it's rainy and cold. Maybe a museum or such. Wednesday is a holiday, Armistice Day, although typically it's on the only weekday I have off anyway, so same old same old for me. And yeah, that's it until the next exciting installment!

PS

I forgot to say I was drilling the students in my conversation class on the pronunciation of 'fifth' today (Remember, remember, the fifth of November). Mainly because frenchies have trouble with the 'th' sound. But guess what came back at me? "Fuff". Ah, just when you think you don't have a horrible kiwi accent, turns out you're infecting the French with it!!

Back to school

Getting up this morning at 7.15 was haaaaard. Admittedly, I have been in a pattern of being awake until around midnight and sleeping until around 9, but for some reason last night my body freaked out and refused to go to sleep until about 2.30 am, then I woke up at least twice that I remember in the night. So yeah, grumpy this morning. Presumably this had something to do with the fact that I opened my neglected diary at around 9 pm and realised that I had said I would present a lesson on 'Maori/NZ culture, differences, racism etc.' Erm, kind of a big topic, no clues where to start, stupid Google was giving me nothing... After much fruitless searching and no ideas whatsoever, I finally pulled together some Powerpoint images at about 1 in the morning. Didn't have time to get anything printed/photocopied today so ended up having to take my laptop in to class and hold it aloft while the kids just completely failed to get engaged or answer any of my questions. Painful - and next week the other half of the class comes along for that hour (don't ask me what the halves thing is about), so I get to do it again... (No planning though, woo!)

Anyway, that was after my ridiculously easy first hour (listening and correcting students' presentations) and before my conversation class, which went okay - we did Guy Fawkes & did my best to tease out philosophical debate on whether he was a terrorist or a freedom fighter, whether it was right to disobey laws you morally disagreed with etc. etc. Not the liveliest debate ever (me and two students) but at least the hour was filled.

Then my second conversation class was cancelled (woohoo). One of my classes tomorrow is cancelled, and one next Tuesday (sadly in the middle of the day so not a whole lot of use to me) so a pretty easy start back to teaching anyway. Then just 6 more weeks till the next holidays, seeing my family in England.

Yesterday, my last day of freedom, I decided to actually leave the house for once and went to the Matisse Museum, which as I think I said, is just down the road. It's free, which is a big plus. Otherwise, I might have been a bit disappointed. I'm not a huge fan of Matisse to begin with, but I still would have liked to see more of the characteritic large paintings or decoupage works, instead of lots of drawings and studies, a handful of early paintings, and some sculpture, tapestries and stained glass. But, ya know, free, a way to kill an hour, can't complain.

The museum is in a shabby-chic 17th century mansion, set in a nice park filled with olive trees that I like to visit quite often. It's always full of old men playing boules or petanque or whatever (is there a difference) in the afternoons, and has a generally livelier feel than many equivalents in other countries I've been to. The park is also home to some pretty impressive Roman ruins, which they're doing some sort of restoration work on at the moment. It cracked me up the other day when I walked past at lunchtime and saw all the labourers sitting down to lunch, outside, at a table outside - plates, glasses, the works. Lunch is something to be taken very seriously in France! There's supposedly an archaeological museum in the grounds as well, but I have no idea where it is - the whole place isn't that big, I must be missing something... Finally, there's a church, which is actually very pretty and peaceful and nice, and features the mummified corpse of some old saint, lying out for all to see. Spookilicious! The church has a museum to the Franciscans as well, which I haven't been in, and there's supposedly a monastery somewhere around the place, so all in all, a park packed with divertissements...

Lazy days

I've been on holiday since last Friday and have managed to do pretty much nothing, in life as on the blog. I am, of course, ashamed, but on the other hand, that's what holidays are for, no?

I did take one excursion to Peille which is a little medieval village perched up in the mountains, about an hour and a half's bus-ride from Nice, up roads windy enough to make one of our party throw up on the descent. Good times! Nothing much to report on it - it was small and deserted, we wandered about, saw the war memorial, saw the church, had a drink (no alcohol without food!) and that was that. But still, a nice day out with a couple of other assistants and their assorted friends, and it's only 1 euro on the bus to anywhere in the departement, which is a stone-cold bargain!

Back to work the day after tomorrow... actually won't mind it too much, considering all the pointless hanging about (mostly in the sunshine though) I've been doing. Hope everyone and RANCH is well



A view of the war memorial in Peille



A friendly kitty cat and me



Me, Ibi, Shaomei (Ibi's flatmate), 2 of Shaomei's friends and Ben another assistant in Peille. Probably not in that order, but I can't see the photos when I'm uploading them, so whatevs.

La vie quotidienne - jeudi et vendredi

THURSDAY

Up at the crack of 7.15 or so for my longest day - 5 hours at school, of which 4 are teaching.

I start from 9-10 am with another class with Mme G. (she of Monday mornings). I get to go to a room of my own for this and she sends students one by one to do their oral presentations for about 15 mins at a time, I correct them, that is that. Easy as pie, no preparation required. :)

10-11 I have class with Mme T. This is one of those classes where I'm not sure what's going on and I feel a bit like a spare part (not as much as on Fridays though). I work with Mme T. in the classroom - last week I presented a quiz on New Zealand, which worked pretty well (have done it with three classes so far) and then Mme T. split the class into two groups to discuss a painting by Norman Rockwell. Fun fact: the French school system is positively obsessed with Norman Rockwell. Apparently he holds the key to understanding the totality of American culture, despite being (in my opinion) hackneyed and dull. In line with this dull-and-hackneyedness, I found it very difficult to think of anything to talk about vis-a-vis this painting: it wasn't my job to do the talking, but the students didn't have much to say either and it was hard to lead the discussion when I pretty much agreed with their silence. Little bits of Mme T.'s group's much more focussed discussion kept drifting over to me and making me feel useless and inexperienced, which of course I am (inexperienced, at any rate).

Then I have an inconveniently-placed 11-12 lunch-break. I suppose it's good for avoiding the seemingly mandatory 12-2 closing of all the shops, should I have anything to purchase at this time. But anyway, then it's back to teaching.

From 12-2 I have two small group conversation classes with prepa students. Prepa students (now this truly is insane) choose to spend two extra years at school after they pass the final Bac exam. This is so they can study hard and sit a nationwide competitive exam at the end of it in the hope of getting into the best universities. Now there's dedication for you! Accordingly, these students are expected to be willing to give up an hour of their lunchtimes to come and have voluntary extra English classes with me. Last week no-one turned up for the 1-2 pm hour, so that shows how well that works out! I suppose it was the second to last day before holidays... No-one ever told me what to do if students didn't come, but I just waited for 15 minutes and then went home, so long may they continue skipping class! Anyway, the first hour is the litteraire bunch again - I had them for the first time last week, and contrary to my expectations that they would be particularly adept at languages, they kinda sucked (well the 3 that turned up, anyway). It was like pulling teeth getting them to talk (using the same game that I had used with great success with the 1-2 group the week before), they frequently couldn't understand me, made basic mistakes etc. etc. So that was painful and I'm hoping for a different group next week. Making mistakes is fine, but if people just don't talk it's awkward and sucky for all. I had the 1-2 group the week before that, these are the business stream, and the 3 girls who came were awesome! Chatty, pretty good at English, lots of fun. I would like all the conversation groups to be like them! I hope next time I don't just get a completely different bunch who suck as well.

FRIDAY

Another slow start to the day, I don't have class until 1 pm. 1-2 is class with Mme M. who is a lot nicer than I thought at first when I was given her details as my contact person, and since she wasn't actually doing it this year, she just didn't reply to any of my emails or pass them on to my actual contact person. That's still totally arse though. This is another class where I have to work in the classroom with Mme M. and the whole class. Last Friday was more of me just awkwardly hovering on the sidelines with nothing to do for ages, then I took half of the class and listened to them present on newspaper articles. Nothing too exciting.

2-3 I have class with Mme B. who is just the nicest lady ever! When the students talk over each other (and they do, it's kinda annoying) she looks mournful and says something like "Don't you want to listen to your friends", it cracks me up. Her classes are also always interesting - she gets the students to prepare presentations on fun topics like concepts for reality TV shows. The downside is that I feel like a complete spare part in this class. Last week the students just did their presentations and I sat there and did nothing. Then Mme B. critiqued them, and I pretty much still sat there and did nothing, although she did ask me to point out some mistakes, at which point I did my best goldfish impression because, although I had taken some notes during the presentation, suddenly they were completely useless and I couldn't remember what they meant etc. etc. and then my hour is up and I have to leave in the middle of the class, which always makes me feel like I'm slinking out.

So anyway, as you can see, there's a lot of variety in what I'm expected to do and I'm not quite settled in to it all yet. Not much actual getting up in front of a class and teaching there, but I think in due course I will be expected to present more stuff in the classes where it's me and the teacher and the whole class, I think they're easing me into it a bit. The lines of communication are pretty poor and I only usually see the teachers in class time when they're busy teaching, so I very often just turn up to class with no clue as to whether they expect me to have something ready to go or not. I've tried to prepare a variety of exercises and themes so I can whip out something if need be and not be a total fail.

We often go out to town on Friday nights, which is a total pain because after 9 there's only one bus an hour home, and they stop at 1.10, which is a real struggle for me because I want to stay out all night! This means Saturday is often spent 'resting' and then yeah, Sunday's Sunday, whatevs. And that's my life thus far...

Last night I went out salsa dancing, which was fun although I pretty much sucked. It was a nice club though, it was nice to find somewhere that was full of (as far as I could tell) mainly locals and French people instead of English-speaking tourists like the places we always seem to wind up at on Friday/Saturday nights (partly because there are not a lot of clubs in Nice at all for some reason). And it was packed out on a Tuesday night! Might go again in future, I have Wednesdays off of course, so nothing stopping me other than money and laziness. Talking of which, have really done nothing of note with my holidays, and may very well not today either, considering I got to bed at about 1.30 last night and for some reason woke up at about 8 this morning, which cries out for an afternoon nap. Why do holidays always go by so fast??

La vie quotidienne - mardi et mercredi

The advantages of working four days a week, instead of three like my lucky so-and-so flatmates, is that at least my days are short. (And yes, we are ALL lucky with 12 hours a week teaching plus lesson prep time, but remember that we are earning povvo wages and having to pay for everything - rent, food, utilities, transport etc. etc. on our own dime.) So anyway...

TUESDAY

I get to have a lie-in or whatevs, because I don't start work until 1 pm. Lie-ins are facilitated by the awesomeness that is the metal shutters in my room - they are electronic, and once they're down, by crikey, you could be in the Black Hole of Calcutta. I ADORE it! On the downside, this means when I wake up I'm usually none the wiser as to whether it's 2 am or 2 pm, so I've taken to leaving them open a crack at the bottom, which means that they aren't fully concertina-ed together and little bits of light peep through the whole way up - still dark at night, but enough to make waking up slightly easier in the morning. Anyway, if I manage to get on to the English-American library again, maybe I can fill my Tuesday mornings volunteering there. I tried dropping by this afternoon for the second time, because there are allegedly people working there on Monday afternoons, despite the library being closed, but no joy. Will have to email so they don't think I have no follow-through. (Update: email sent.)

So, 1-2 and 3-4 on Tuesdays I have more classes with the aforementioned Monsieur A. 2-3 I have class with Mme K. who is Irish and very nice but offended my patriotic sensibilities last week by telling the class not to buy NZ-origin produce because of the airmiles issue and said that my claims that studies showed that Europe-grown fruit and vege often used more energy overall than imported stuff from NZ was propaganda. So there you go, stand by for the economy to go (further) down the toilet. I tried. Her class is in the 'literature' stream, which requires a wee digression on the nature of the French school system:

For those not in the know, students at lycees (high school) are separated out not only by the type of lycee (basically, more vocational or more general/scholarly - mine is the latter) but also by the subjects they concentrate on. Effectively, it's like they pick their university majors already in high school. I know that my high school education was heavily skewed in one direction, but that's because I individually picked those courses - they pick a stream e.g. literary, scientific, business - and then their programme of study is mapped out for them accordingly, and they all stick with the same classmates. Even though 'literary' (litteraire) sounds like they'd spend all their time reading literature, a lot of the literary kids (to my surprise and disappointment) profess not to read at all, so a better word would be something like 'humanities' - they concentrate on learning languages (some more than others), history, philosophy etc. as well as literature.

After 4, I'm free again and more than likely ready to head back home.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesdays are my 'sole' day off (obviously the weekend doesn't count, cos even wage-slaves get that...) and, unfortunately, also my designated laundry day. We were all mucho excited last week to get a brand spanking-new washing machine, one that doesn't perform so poorly that the clothes have to have an entire bucketful of water hand-wrung out of them after the end of the cycle. But anyway, there are still three girls and one (albeit capacious) drying rack between us, so we each have our designated laundry day, spaced out through the week. It obviously makes sense for this to be on my day off, but naturally it cramps my style going out-wise. So Wednesdays are at least partly dedicated to laundry and other such chores. Whether it be a peculiar feature of the lino chez nous, or whether it's owing to the curious abundance of antique wooden furniture (we seriously have so many chairs we don't know what to do - 4 wooden chairs and an armchair in my room alone, I would say perfect excuse for a party were it not for the "elderly noise-hating extremely religious neighbour" who supposedly lives next door to us. Said neighbour has never been seen, and his apartment is shrouded in such silence that I suspect Mme C. made him up in order to (if you'll excuse the semi-pun) put the fear of God into us, but I digress...) As I was saying before the sentence trailed into oblivion, for reasons unknown, our apartment is, like, crazy dusty. Once a week is the absolute minimum for vacuuming - in that space of time, actual dustballs form and roam about my room in search of sustenance. Or something. So, much to the anticipated disbelief of my father, we all wage a constant war on dust here. So that's my go-go Wednesdays.



STUFF WOT HAPPENED TODAY

I read my insurance policy and found out that, with what they call the 'el cheapo policy' (not really, but...) breakages are specifically excluded from cover. So, no free camera repair/replacement for me. Sigh. I found the names of a couple of repair shops on the net, managed to find one today but not the other - closed on Mondays. Fricking typical. Must preserve the sanctity of the 35-hour working week, mais non? After that, I had some socca - my students have been nagging me on the subject - this is a Nicois speciality - a sort of chickpea pancake. It actually wasn't too bad, I like chickpeas, albeit a bit greasy and coulda done with something else (an Instant Kiwi perhaps?) Then I sat around next to a fountain in old town, then in a park, enjoying the sunshine, then walked for a while and went home, where I cleaned the toilet and bathroom and vacuumed and mopped the whole apartment, then cooked myself a real honest-to-goodness dinner of crumbed chicken breast, mashed potatoes and spinach. So domesticated! Was wondering where the flatties had got to - turns out I had been an hour ahead since Sunday, as I didn't realise the clocks went back until this evening. They had actually been on a day trip to St Paul, a small village somewhere or other, which I'm sorry I missed out on. Big bonus is that we can go anywhere on the normal bus routes for free with our bus passes, and anywhere else in the whole departement by bus for a euro. Must profiter-en (as the French would say) during the holidays - particularly as I'm getting broker by the minute and can't afford to go anywhere else. And that is all the stuff wot happened today. No idea what stuff will happen tomorrow, hopefully something more exciting.

La vie quotidienne - lundi

So (Mum wants to know) how are things going? What do I do with myself all day? This week, and until the 5th of November, I'm actually on holidays, so the answer will hopefully be "fun day trips within my meagre budget!" but let's pretend you asked about the 40% of the time when I'm not on holiday.

MONDAY: I haven't had to do this yet, but in two weeks' time, I will have to get up at a ridiculous hour, probably 6.15 or something, in order to get to school for an 8 am class. :(

The day will begin with a shower. I'm still struggling to come to terms with ours - no shower curtain or similar, and it's one of those with no support thing for the shower head, so you have to hold it in your hands at all times (or between your knees when washing your hair). Cue a bathroom inevitably flooded with water. Seriously, French people, I know some of you travel. Why has no-one returned with the shocking news that THERE IS A BETTER WAY?

Then comes the commute to work - about a 15- or 20-minute bus-ride, normally not too bad because I get on early in the piece and can usually get a seat. Lately, since the weather has turned mildly cold, the sun-loving Nicoises have panicked and cranked up the heat on everything, including the bus, to stifling levels. The other day (by accident or design, I know not) my bus seat was so hot it was uncomfortable to sit on. And they all sit there in their jackets and scarves! They are actually insane. Do they not sweat? If you prick them, will they bleed? On Saturday we went to the park on a beautiful, sunny afternoon - all of us in summer dresses and skirts. Every French person about was rugged up for an Arctic winter. It half makes me wish for proper cold weather (and, actually, it is pretty cold in the mornings/night at the mo) just so I can blend in a bit more with these people.

Anyway... usually I get to work a bit early and check my emails, although this won't be as imperative now we have the blessed wifi. I also try to print out materials to use in class - you have to drop them off at the photocopy room for an up-to-24-hour-turnaround, so trying to get organised in advance.

Then I will have (haven't yet) Mme G.'s class 8-10. If I remember correctly, this is going to be one of the deals where a small group of up to about 5 students come see me in another room and I do... whatever... with them. Probably more kind of conversation-class type things than teaching as such. Or these are possibly the ones that are fiends for practising 'les documents (in)connues' - part of their Bac exam is giving a short oral presentation on '(un)known documents' - i.e. ads, photos, paintings etc. which they have to describe in English. So quite often, I just have to listen to students giving these presentations and correct what they say, ask questions, etc. I did this with three students last week, pretty simple.

Then 10-11 I have class with Monsieur A. Monsieur A's classes - I have three with him - are entirely different. He and I stand up in front of the whole class and (as far as I can tell from the ones I've attended so far) work through translations with them. This consists of a student volunteering his or her English translation of a French text, Monsieur A going "Gwan, will you accept that?" Me: "Erm, no..." Monsieur A: "She is too polite to say, but that was VERY WRONG! Gwan, what do you propose?" and then I have to suggest a translation. It's not so bad now that he gives me the articles in advance and my 'homework' is to translate them into English (it's like being back at uni!) but the first class with him, I went in cold without ever having seen the article before and it was HARD! I'm not a translator nor do I speak perfect French! It's often quite hard to explain why the students' translations don't work (I mean, sometimes they do, but...) mostly it's just that it sounds "off" to my native ears. Which I suppose is what I'm there for, as a big set of native ears (hold your cruel comments on my ears, please) but I often feel my explanations to be inadequate at this juncture.

Anyway, so 11 am Monday morning rolls around and that's it - finished for the day! I can't really tell you what I will do with my Mondays at the moment, although I have the distinct feeling that 'afternoon nap' will loom large in my timetable. My school is pretty centrally located - just across the street is Old Nice, the heart of the tourist trap, but also a pretty nice collection of narrow alleys in which to wander. Beyond Old Nice is the sea and the big avenues of the Promenade des Anglais and Promenade des Etats-Unis. We are also close to the central library, with which I am already well-acquainted. It has a whole row of English books - I'm pretty sure I'll get through all the likely suspects before too long, but it's keeping me going for the moment at least. If you head in the other direction, you get to Place Massena and the road which runs at right-angles from that is the main shopping drag. So there are lots of time-killing options in walking distance.

Or I can take the bus home. The main feature of my bus route, for tourists, is the Musee Matisse, which is only a few stops from my house. I like to amuse myself by spotting who will get off at that stop. Usually it's pretty easy - clutching maps, looking around anxiously, speaking English, wearing baseball caps - all dead giveaways. I had a bit of a malicious chuckle the other day when I noticed one couple, after having asked the bus driver about 3 times where to get off, walking past the entrance into the park where the museum is. Ah, cruel - and unnecessary, given how much touristing about I do. I just like to snobbishly think of myself as a better breed of tourist, but I'm sure I am equally an object of the locals' scorn, and even that of the semi-locals like me.

My flatmates and I are almost always home by about 5 pm, for a quiet evening of TV-watching and dinner-preparation, before bed at about 10. Indeed, life on the Med is full of glamour and excitement! My flatmate Emily is even teaching us how to knit, a process which currently consists mainly of doing the same row of stitches again and again after I get to the end and find all the mistakes I made. Our favourite show is a French version of Blind Date, which is known chez nous as 'the dirty show' because it features extremely average, usually 40ish, French men and women (the latter in embarrassing short skirts) who are only too happy to go on national TV and proclaim their willingness to do just about anything to snag a partner, in horribly suggestive detail. It's cringe-worthy fun!

So that's my Mondays. Stay tuned for the other exciting installments, and hopefully fun things I've done with my holidays!

Oh and PS - it's my one-month-aversary in Nice today. Time has indeed flown! That means only 6 months to go??? And then ???? Arrrgh!