Le Havre, je t'aime

At 11pm on the 22nd of September last year, my boat had just set sail for France.

Here are some facts about that trip:

• I was on my own in a cabin in a state of quiet disbelief.
• I'd never travelled abroad alone before.
• I'd never travelled as a foot passenger on a ferry before.
• I'd only ever been to France three times, all of them with school (I haven't counted driving through it to get to Amsterdam because we didn't get to visit one single boulangerie on that trip).
• I didn't have a clue who or what was going to greet me on the other side. (Well... I knew it was my colleague Aurélie but I didn't know the first thing about her other than that she'd be wearing 'colourful tights'.)
• I didn't think I'd understand anyone when I arrived.
• Perhaps more worryingly, I didn't think anyone would understand me when I arrived.
• I was utterly terrified.

I needn't have been, of course. The fear of having an atrocious year abroad is a common one, but for the vast majority of people it's one which never comes true.

It is highly doubtful that there will ever be another period in my life where I have such incredible freedom:

• I had just two tiny bills to pay during my time in France (my rent was a meagre 60€ [£50] per month, including utilities!) 
• I had few responsibilities and enormous quantities of free time, even after working a not-insignificant amount of unpaid overtime and putting in enough hours to make sure my lessons were solid and well-planned. 
• My timetable was incredibly flexible, I had wonderful colleagues and I was, by and large, free to do as I pleased.
• There was never any excuse to be bored - everything was new, interesting and exciting. We made last-minute plans left, right and centre, heading wherever our whims led us. We never said 'no' to anything, even if it was something we'd never have considered doing in the UK.
• In spite of apparently not earning the SMIC (French minimum wage), we believed ourselves to be absurdly well-paid for what we did and how much of our week we actually had to spend doing it. 
• It was a nice break, too, to only have one job. Although my dissertation did take up a certain amount of time towards the end of the year, life was far from the education-employment juggling act at which I have to excel when I'm in Southampton.

As well as this, I was immersed every single day into the world of a language which I still believe to be one of the most beautiful I have ever heard. Learning evermore about French culture never bored me. The food... well, others have waxed lyrical about French food far better than I'm able to here. It's probably enough to say that the French are rather good at cooking and make truly wonderful hosts. I learnt so much, improved my language skills, met some incredible friends and fell completely in love with a town (Le Havre) and département (La Seine-Maritime) of France.

My only regret is that I did not fully appreciate all of this soon enough. Up to Christmas, I wasted so much time worrying about how I was fitting in, how good my French was, whether I was as good as other assistants... I panicked about things which were either unnecessary or unmeasurable. I did not allow myself to relax into the experience and enjoy it as I should have. Only in January did I realise my mistake and from that moment my experience of la vie française became something truly special.

France was almost like a holiday from life. This perhaps has something to do with the feeling now that it was all a dream, that I couldn't possibly have spent seven months in another country and certainly not just a few short months ago. I feel like a different person now to when I left for France - moving back to the UK caused me more confusion and unrest than heading for the continent ever did, something which many friends have also found to be the case.

I would unreservedly recommend an assistantship to anyone.

Pizza, Popcorn, Packing and Partings

With just seven days left until I’m back home at home, I’m only now realising how much I’m going to miss France.

A couple of weeks ago, I thought that I would miss France but also quite liked the idea of going home to England. Ellie said that this feeling of being torn meant that my stay had been the perfect length and I was inclined to agree. Now, however, I’ve changed my mind. I can’t wait to see my family and friends (it’s going to be brilliant) but part of me feels that a holiday to England would do just fine for that.

Life here is fantastic - we’re fairly paid and our workload gives us plentiful time to have a social life and to be an active part of French culture. I love the food, the language and the atmosphere. There are things which I feel I will never understand - the never-ending tide of bureaucracy, for one. That said, I know enough to know that I love France. I feel the same about Normandy and Le Havre. I get extremely annoyed when people are rude about this city – it doesn't seem fair. I’m not ready to leave just yet and I’m incredibly jealous of those that are staying longer.

Casino, Chouquettes and Cliffs

And apparently it’s Sunday again. It seems to be forever the weekend at the moment. Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing but at the moment it just serves to emphasise how fast time is going by. Three weeks today, I’ll be back at my family home in England – it’s scary how quickly my months in France have passed.

On Tuesday night I and my assistant friend Sam 1 went to a hotel in Le Havre to help one of my colleagues film some videos for a hospitality class. It was really fun filming all of the dialogues between a customer and a receptionist but my favourite without a shadow of a doubt was the rude receptionist one. My customer service is really something I pride myself on and I would never dream of being rude in real life. As an acting exercise and a way of training people what NOT to do, however, it was great fun.

Blizzards, Bowling and a Banquet

The north of France had a bit of snow last week. I say a bit… over half a metre in places. I’d never seen so much of the stuff in my life. I freely admit that I’d underestimated the meaning of a red snow warning – Eurostar trains, national SNCF trains, ferries, buses, trams, planes… all cancelled. The only place you could fly to in the UK was apparently Aberdeen. When the only place that you can fly due to bad weather is Scotland, you know the world has gone mad.

Heating, House and Holiday

I’m finally almost recovered (even though this cold is certainly more ambitious than I was hoping) so it seemed like a good time to write another blog.

On Sunday night, we went to see Argo in English. Great film – I understand the criticisms of it but it’s difficult to deny that it’s tense and well-directed.

Monday morning saw me laid in bed feeling very sorry for myself and thinking ‘please don’t make me have to go to school today’. Apparently luck was with me because I promptly got a call telling me that school was closed due to a heating malfunction. I have to admit to being a bit happier about this than I probably should’ve been but I very hardly ever miss work with illness and I hadn’t been going to let myself that day so I don’t feel too bad.

Theatre, Tour Eiffel and Theme Park

I’m ill, blog-readers. Whilst I haven’t yet reached a full man-flu meltdown, breathing is difficult and I’m currently rocking back and forth in a corner singing ‘Soft Kitty’ to myself. I am desperately hoping my classes decide to play ball this week or I may just quarantine myself in a stationery cupboard.

Last week I popped back to England to see some of my favourite people. Ellie very kindly let me sleep on her floor for the second time this year and I had such a good time.

On Wednesday we went to Costa in the morning. As much as I like espresso, I’ve definitely missed going to Costa for a latte so this was a perfect start to my stay. In the evening we ate at the newly refurbished Bridge Bar in the student union. SUSU have done a really great job on The Bridge. It looks completely different from how it looked before and the new design is such an improvement. The food was really nice. Pretty cheap as well, which is always a plus! It was nice to have a few hours with Annie and Sera to chat while Ellie was at ArtSoc and there was some good live music too.

Annie, Alisa, and America

I’m not quite sure how it’s the 18^th of February, I seem to lose a fortnight every time I blink at the moment. It really is terrifying how fast the year abroad has sped by – in just 8 weeks, I will no longer live in France. I love the UK and I’m sure I’ll soon settle down back at home but at the moment the thought of leaving France is really sad. I’ve really come to love this town (in spite of its many quirks!) and, as I was discussing with a couple of assistants the other day, there won’t be many other times in our life where we’re so free and unrestricted as we’ve been these past few months. I’m also terrified that my fourth and final year of university will pass as quickly as this third one has. At the moment, the “real world” seems like a distant battle but leaving France will signify at enormous stride in the direction of that struggle.

February has been no quieter than any other month since I arrived here in France. In fact, if anything, it feels like it’s been the busiest yet!

Seagull

The full title of this post is ‘Seagull, Silver-Screen and the Seine-Maritime’ but lots has happened in a very short space of time so I’ll split this blog in to three handy sections (the other two will be separateposts below this one) and you can pick and choose which you read.

Before we begin, I’ve decided that England is one of the worst places to learn English for non-native speakers. When I was at school, I knew a French native who’d worked in Scotland and here I’ve worked with someone that worked in Northern Ireland and another person who has spent time in the USA. All of them have far better intonation and more authentic sounding accents than any French person I’ve ever met who lived/studied in England. It seems to be better to go somewhere with a strong accent that you can really pick up. (I imagine this also works for other languages.)

A Seagull (Or ‘You couldn’t make it up’)

They come here. They all come here. How do they find me? – Max Bialystock, The Producers

My friend Donné particularly enjoys asking me the question “How do you get yourself in to these situations?”. This is mainly because I have proven repeatedly that if there is anything bizarre, crazy or irritating within a 10-mile radius then it will likely go out of its way to try to hunt me down.

The last week has been no exception to this rule. It started with small things like a man asking me what day it was and finding the answer quite traumatic. After this came a student tirade about the evils of jelly. Another fairly amusing thing happened at Tuesday night’s language café (my commitment to attend is going strong). Sam and I were on an English table with some quite... interesting people. One French man was finding it difficult to hear which caused him to misunderstand quite a few things that were said. This eventually resulted in him writing down that a Korean girl’s name came from her parents wanting her to grow up to be ‘beautiful and white’ rather than ‘beautiful and wise’.

Two events, however, really surpassed themselves in trying to be my weirdest thing of the week. The first was a man running after a seagull shouting and swearing at it. The seagull had managed to steal his takeaway, get the tray out of the bag, open the tray AND start eating before he managed to catch up with it. Here is my sneaky photo of the seagull and his spoils:

This is what winning looks like.

 The second strange event of my week was less pleasant than watching a man getting mugged by a hungry seagull. I got on the bus to goto school and sadly so did an incredibly drunk man. He was aggressive, shouting and swearing at all of the other passengers. The rest of the bus ganged up on him (one quite elderly lady said ‘We’re just trying to get towork. What are you doing for society?’) and the situation was escalating pretty quickly. Eventually the bus driver stopped and said she wouldn’t go any further until the contrôle (ticket inspectors/bus bouncers) arrived. Eventually three of them arrived and carried the guy off of the bus. He didn’t take this very well and as we drove off with everyone on the bus cheering he was still shouting and lashing out at the control officers and a policeman.

Please send in your own entries to my ‘You couldn’t makeit up’ competition. If I get any good ones, I’ll pass them on.

Silver Screen

As other assistants have commented, it can sometimes (not always!) seem like there is surprisingly little to do in Le Havre for a town of its size. Consequently, we spend a heck of a lot of time at the cinema (at the moment, I’m going around 3 times a week). This isn’t a bad thing – it’s a good way to improve my French without having to try too hard and it’s pretty good fun.

In the last week, our cinema has been having a previews festival. As a result, I’ve got to see some really great films before their French release date and, excitingly, they’ve all been in English! As much as I enjoy learning French, you really can have too much of a good thing and, while dubbing works fantastically with animations, it is severely irritating when it’s applied to live action films. On one of these cinema visits, the lady checking tickets warned me that the film would be in VO (original version) rather than VF (French dubbed). I told her that I didn’t think it would cause me too much of a problem.

 

The Seine-Maritime

This weekend I was lucky enough to have the chance to stay in Dieppe and Rouen, the Seine-Maritime department’s other two large cities, with one of the teachers from school and her boyfriend. Sadly she’s not a colleague I generally get to work with as she teaches English in the other section of the school to the one I work in so it was really nice to get to know her a bit better.

We stayed in the small town of Quiberville-sur-mer near to Dieppe. It’s a beautiful town in the countryside and the house overlooked the sea and cliffs.

Language, Language, Language!

To speak another language is to possess another soul – Charlemagne

So hang me, I cheated with the title. This post is, however, very much about language and therefore I do not feel at all guilty in having done so.

Firstly, Sam (one of the other assistants here in Le Havre) has written two absolutely brilliant blog posts, one on how to sound French and the other on how to sound French Havrais-style. Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I had an idea for a similar post but it couldn’t possibly be as accurate or as amusing as these posts are. If you want to have a go at sounding French, give them a read – they’re very entertaining and very true to life.