Traveling on a different scale

Luggage packed. It currently stands at 44 kg, and that excludes hand luggage. Some people may ask: “are you traveling with a house?” Well technically, yes. Considering I am moving to a different country, that’s not bad going I think! However there is a downside to all of this: they started their journey in Norwich, they followed me to France for the summer, came back up to Leicester, and now they’re following me to Italy before actually going to Spain, where they’ll stay for a fair while. My arms can’t take it anymore!!!

However, other than complaining about weight, I wanted to use this post to reflect a bit on what happened and what’s to come. Starting from this summer, it must have been one of the best I’ve ever had! People close to me know that I don’t like having nothing to do, in fact the busier the better, so spending the summer working on average 15 hours a day suited my character! I did a bit of everything: from assisting teachers in the first few weeks, to doing some revision with small kids after that, to manage a small web radio, and finally to having a French class of my own for 4 weeks! The people I met, adults and kids, have been amazing, and left me wanting to come back, and hopefully I will next year! However, after 10 weeks there, I was happy to leave and enjoy being pampered for a short while.

So what’s next? Well, first of all, I need to get to Leicester station. If you go back to the beginning of the post and look at the weight of my suitcases, you’ll realise it might be a bit of a challenge… Then I need to find some space on the train for them, then I need to carry them around St. Pancras, then in another train down to Gatwick, and then, hopefully, someone will actually help me before I fade away? I think, by the time I get to Italy tonight, I will have lost about 4 stones in weight myself…

After then, preparation for my year abroad begins! I need to book my flights, get in touch with the school and my university, find a house… so, lots to do!!! At least I know where I’m going… I’ll be working in Pinto, a small town in the Comunidad de Madrid about 28km south of the capital. It doesn’t look like anything special really, but I’m curious to see. I’ll probably be living in Getafe though, a city closer to Madrid but with easy transport to the workplace: however, being about 4 times the size of Pinto, there are a lot more things to do, and houses are a lot cheaper! So that’s one of the things I’ll be looking into in the next few weeks…

It’s now been 3 months since I’ve seen my course-mates, and you can’t even imagine how much I miss them! Funny thing though, most of them are moving to Spain, so I’m hoping I’ll see them quite soon!! They’re all preparing to leave as well, so I’m guessing I’m not the only one going through all these issues… (at least, I’m hoping so…)

The next post will probably be in 3 weeks’ time, from my new house in Spain (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!). Until then…

BON COURAGE!

¡HASTA LUEGO!

A PRESTO!

SEE YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!!!!!!

The Story So Far...

Well hello again!!!

It's been a while since I posted the last time, but oh lord I have never stopped for a single moment!!!

What is there to say... work carries on as usual, although it is always a surprise finding out what I will be doing the following week: the first three weeks I was a French as a Foreign Language teacher, then I became a French French teacher (to the small kiddos, kind of Yr 2 and 3), and now I am managing the radio after a (very short) time spent doing sports (never, EVER, again!!!).

In the past few weeks I have been as moody as I can possibly be... the first 4-5 weeks we had an amazing group of kids: all ages (and yes, even the teenagers!!!) just tried everything that was thrown at them!!! I must admit that with personalities like these work just becomes easy and enjoyable! Everything changed last week: a big school group arrived (10 kids), and honesty I can't wait for the moment they leave. They are rude, noisy, spoilt little sods who are just there to annoy me: most of my day is spent shouting at them, while my free time is spent collecting the food they have in the bedroom (yesterday I managed to confiscate a total of 20kg of anything and everything, which incuded breakfast cereals, sugar and milk powder...). This is becoming a nightmare now, and the sooner they leave the better!!! On the other side, the French kids that arrived this week to study English are a really good bunch, and if you forget the normal teenage issues then you can get along really well with them!!!

In other news...

I still have issues with the French keyboard: whoever thought that these symbols ,;:!&é"'(-_çà were more useful than these ?./12345677890 was probably eating to many escargots at the time and had some serious judgement issues!!!! Also all the letters are in the wrong place, and I can't do the accents I want...

I've now been to Paris 4 times, and I'm going again in the next few weeks, and I can't get tired of it!!! Two issues though: no vegetarian food for miles, and impossible to navigate the metro stations with the signs they've put up!!

Still waiting for news from Spain: I'm guessing the Ministerio de la Educacion (can't put the accent on a French keyboard...) is taking a summer-long siesta...

Hopefully there will be photos coming soon, but until then enjoy life!!!!!! :D

La campagne de la Champagne (ou la Champagne de campagne?)

Hello! I must apologise for my silence since the last post, but since I got here I didn't stop for a single second!! But now I've got a day off and time to myself, so I can write down what happened...

The last time I wrote on here I was still in Paris, wondering what to do with my life (especially transport-wise) and getting ready to go to the station. Well, I got to the station! (now that was the easy bit...). Nadine managed to arrive to Gare de Lyon too from Geneva (the only train not to have been cancelled apparently...), and got a snack before starting our journey. Can I just say that €8.50 for a tea and a slice of cheesecake from Starbucks is a bit extortionate?!?!?!? But never mind, that wasn't the most expensive bit of the trip...

We managed to make our way to Gare de l'Est, where someone was supposed to meet us and we would then have taken the train together. Well, that didn't happen... Once there, the amount of people that had already started camping on the floor did not give us any faith at all in the trains that day, and that was soon to be confirmed. After paying €16.50 for a 1-hour one-way train ticket (English people, stop complaining about train fares, you don't know what you're talking about!!!), we found out the train we booked didn't actually exist (yep, you guessed it, it was on strike). Quite panicky, me being used to the relative decency of British trains, Nadine just being Swiss, we started calling the people at the Summer camp for help who, in a very French way, just told us to stay there and wait for A train (hell knows which one...). We later found out that train was 1 hour 20 minutes later than the one we booked, so we just joined the "camp-site" of Parisian commuters... We finally found that person who would take us to Champagne, and immediately told us that we didn't have to buy a train ticket because of the strike. Well, thanks for telling us in advance!! Never mind, the train was there and we could get on!!! Yuppeeeee!!! Pity everybody else had the same idea... Since it was probably the only train out in that direction, half of Paris decided to get on and try to get out of the city. This was the result...

One hour 20 minutes later we could to the train's final stop, which was nowhere close to where we were supposed to be, therefore the director of the company had to drive all the way there to then get us out again. So after incredible amounts of steps (lifts don't exist in France apparently...), we were finally on a car heading towards our destination!!

So now I am here, a tiny village called Troissy, where there are more people buried in the local cemetery than actually alive (quote). However, it's beautiful. The first few days were dedicated to get to know the team and the camp and spend some time together (swimming pool, bring it on!!). Then the arrivals got here on Sunday, the first for the summer! From then on, the week has been dedicated to preparing French classes, evening entertainment and taking way too many photos for the official Facebook page. I had one day off (the kids were in Paris), where me and other colleagues just took a bike and went to the nearest town for lunch. Now it's just a matter of keeping this rhythm going and having clear ideas for the next bunch of arrivals (today, in a few hours, from Spain and Russia) and just get them into the loop of activities we organise!

I'm guessing not many things are going to happen from now on, so updates will be rare. Only if I do some kind of day trip I might do it. Until then, laters!!!

xx

P.S.: here are some photos from Troissy...

Oh, and this is where I'm actually working: