Au revoir la France!

Hello everyone!

This will probably be my last post from France, as I leave friday morning and I will be busy this days I have left, with lessons and hanging out with my friends (dont want to say goodbye to them). So a week has passed since I last posted and many things happened so lets start with the begining.

Monday: Had my last french lesson, so I said goodbye to all my wonderful teachers there. The weather was really strange also. I told you all in the previous post that it had snowed and it was colder. Well when I got up monday there were NO trace of any snow on the streets or anywhere and it wasnt cold anymore (the wind was warm). Really odd, have never experienced such a quick turn of change.

Tuesday: Still warm and in the evening I met my lovley english and french friends at Kenny Penny´s (Irish Pub) close to the school. As it was tuesday they had the traditional Pub Quiz (never done it) so we decided to participate. it was 30 questions about news, politics, royal families, showbiz and sports. It was fun and our team came 5th.. OH I must tell you all our wonderful team name... wait for it..... QUIZZEL FOR MY NIZZEL... LOL.. the bar owner LOVED our name..

Wednesday: I was VERY tired cuz I got back home around 00.30 from the pub and I had my first lesson at 8 in the morning *yawn*.. The lessons went fast and in the evening I went to meet the Happy People, to say goodbye as I wont be able to go this week.. It was nice to see everyone that hasnt been there for a while. We took a group pic outside the bar:

Thursday: I had my lessons in the morning and then I took the train up to Paris. The trip went really fast (2h30mins) and I met Sandra (other swedish comenius assistant) at Champs Elysée outside H&M of course hehe.. We decided to watch a movie so we went to the cinema and watched the english version of Harry Potter, much nicer when you understand EVERYTHING and they dont call the wand Baugette. After the movie we went to her boyfriend cousin´s place to sleep.

Champs Elysée by evening

Friday: We had to get up early to get ready and take our lauggage to the Comenius meeting. We decided not to go too early as French ppl are always late (we didnt want to be the typical swedes who are always there first). The thing is we didnt expect the place to be hidden so we came half an hour late almost and we had to ask for help to get there. The entire meeting was in French *yawn* and was mostly about Whay you should do as an assistant which didnt help me much as im finishing my assistantship now (it was me and a norwegain girl who are finishing now). Many ppl talked about problems they are having eg. teacher hitting children lol, not being allowed to have pupils on their own, not doing anything during the lesson, not having a mentor and so on. It was really borning so me and Sandra played TP during the meeting.. lol. During lunch we met the other 2 swedes, Angelica and Jonathan and we took a group pic:

Sandra, Me, Angelica and Jonathan.

The meeting finished by 5-ish (THANK GOD) and I, Sandra, Angelica and Denis (Irish Guy) went to our hotel to check in and leave our bags. Before heading out to eat we passed Lidl to buy some cheap Bubbly wine and crips to have a snack while getting ready. We went to eat at a bar/restaurant and then went into town to an Irish Pub to have some drinks.

Angelica, Me, Sandra and Denis at the metro

Saturday: We woke up around 10-ish bought breakfast on the way to Père Lachaise Cemetery. Sandra had never been there and she wanted to see some graves. We only did a fast visit to Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Edith Piaf (who Dennis never heard of!! I know.. scandalous!). Took a pic of La Mome´s grave:

Afterwards we went to take a look at the christmas market in Champs Elyseé and we walked from Place the la Concorde up to the Arc de Triumf when we decided to slip up. Denis and Angelica wanted to go up and go to the louvre (they are under 25 so they could go for free) me and Sandra didnt want to pay for things we have done and we were bit tired so we decided to go to the cinema instead. We went to see the new movie with Katherine Heigl, funny and very nice again to see a movie in English with French text. We met the others at a italian restaurant to have dinner before we left for the musical (yep we went to see Mozart). I was a bit dissapionted that Solal (the man who plays Mozarts dad)was not there, but the rest of the original cast was there and this time they made a lot of jokes that people who have seen the musical before live or on dvd could understand. It was aswsome as last time and I think the others liked it aswell. This time I didnt take much pics, I videotaped instead :P

Sunday: I woke up early and left the other (who were still sleeping when I left) and went to the trainstation. I went a bit to early so I had a breakfast and then I went to buy a magazine and a book. I sleept the whole way back to Valence. I  didnt do much when I came home as I was tired and mostly read the news about the attack in Stockholm.

So today is monday and the weather is cold again, well the wind is cold and they are saying it will snow on friday (hold your thumbs that it wont cuz then the train wont go). Oh must tell you about today, they did a little goodbye party at the teachers room today. They had bought snacks and drinks and had gifts for me, chocolates and a book about Drôme (where Valence is). Really nice and a bit embarrassing.. lol. Well thats all I have to tell you now. Should start doing my packing soon to see that everything fits my bag or I will have to send stuff.

Hope you all have a nice week and to everyone in Stockholm SEE YOU SOON!!!!

BISOUS!!!!


Ps.. Song of the day: Thought it was fitting to have Mme Piaf in my list again. So here you have: Je ne regrette rien

La neige est là!

Bonjour!

Ca và?  Im doing alright. Its been a calm but also eventful and fun week. So I better start straigh away to tell you about it.

Monday to tuesday was nothing special. Did the normal things, work and french class.

Wednesday was interesting. It started snowing a tuesday evening and in the morning it was like 15 cm snow = Chaos in France. I didnt not hear any cars, in the radio they said that they had stopped all buses and trains. I walked over to the teachers room just 5 mins before the clock was going to sound and met the director, M. Mège who said: Like Sweden? Eh?.. haha.. while he was showeling away all the snow of the school yard. I entered the EMPTY teachers room that usually is full of teacher at that time. It was just me and another teacher there.. LOL.. The clock sounded at 7.50 no sign of any other teacher nor students. We waited 10 more minutes and a 5 brave teachers came in, one if them was Auré who I was working with. So we went up to the classroom to see how many students we had, we knew we would have one at least, as its M. Mège´s daughter (and they live at the school as me). But we had 5 students waiting for us (the ones that lives next to the school). So instead of having lessons we had a breakfast, chat and then the kids wanted to sing some Karaoke, so we did that.. So much fun. I stayed with Auré for her second lesson where we had 6 students and we played a game (I won of course :p)..My 2 lessons with Nacira got cancelled as she couldnt get to school. Later in the afteroon I met Jamie (american friend) and we went to the cinema (who luckily was open, as many places were closed cuz of the snow). We saw the new disney movie Tassle (Rapunzel) and it was awesome, best disney movie in years! In the evening I went to meet the ppl from Happy People but almost no one was there (cuz of the snow again). We were 5 who managed to go there.
Took some pics of the snow for you:

Thursday I was sleeping day.. Didnt sleep so well on wednesday so I had a long nap after my lessons and then did nothing in the evening (well I did watch Star Wars VI).

Friday was another fun day. I had my last lesson with one class as I only have them every other friday and well the friday in 2 weeks im going home. So Auré told them that they could bring something small to eat and we were going to have a fun hour (but in english). I guess they missed the something little part becuase when they came they had organized so 4 people were in charge of drinks and mugs, 5 others had things baked and others brought candy. They had sooo much. I showed them a video of sweden (which they loooved), taught them some swedish words (which they loved even more) its really strange, when they speak english they dont pronounce H.. like Hello becomes Ello but when I thaught them Hej, they pronounced it well and clearly.. hmm.. They had a little gift for me aswell, they printed they classphoto for me and in the back they wrote messages like: I love you, Thank you and so on.. Sooooo cute.

In the evening I had the EA gang over (english assistants) to have a musical/ brinner evening. Brinner=Breakfast+Dinner. Jamie our american friend made some yummy french toast and then of course we had wine with it and alot of snacks while watching Mozart L´Opera Rock on DVD. It was a nice cosy evening.  Here are some pics:

French Toast

The gang: Sarah, Jo, Jacob, Moi and Jamie



 Saturday morning I did nothing excited.. I slep until quite late (10-ish i think) and then did some laundery and dishes. Had a nice lunch and dinner before I headed over to Roxanas for a get together with the chilean/french gang. We had a great time drinking wine, eating Chips and talking, by 12-ish we went to a night club and danced until 2 and then me and Amanda (Brasilian friend) got a ride from the 3 french guys (friends with Roxanas boyfriend) but we ended up staying at Amanda´s for another hour drinking wine and laughing alot. The 2 french guys I had not met before were so funny, talking spanish and english and they were asking me like 3 times if we had Burger King in Sweden. I was like , eh.. yeah.. and they seemed awed. So I had to ask them if they loved BK and their answer was: No, we have never eaten there but its our dream! (eh...ok? heheh). They droped me off at my place around 3.30 am.
Here are some pics from that evening:

Las 3 amigas chilenas

The christmas light was turned on this weekend in Valence

So pretty

Ricardo, Daniela, Me, Amanda and Roxana at the club

Us dancing (hmm I do look a bit wierd.. I think I was singing along.. hehe)

So today I had another sleep in, then did some french grammar in my book and watched a movie before heading out to the cinema with my finnish friend Maiju. We watched a funny but very wierd french movie called Le Nom Des Gens.

Oh this week I FINALLY heard from the Comenius office about the meeting in Paris.. Its next friday so im off to Paris Thursday afternoon to sunday morning :) and I cant wait.. It will be fun meeting the other swedish and other assistants and im going to see Mozart the musical AGAIN live.. with the swedish girls and an irish guy who is sharing a hotel room with us. Im so looking foward to this but also a little sad that I will be missing the Fête des luminéres in Lyon, well well.. you cant have everything.

Well that was what I did this week.. hope you all had a good week aswell and I guess you´ll hear from me again when Im back from Paris. Until then take care all of you!

Bizz

song of the day: Christophe Mae - Belle Demoiselle



Où est le "Baguette?/ Where is the Baguette?

Hello all!

New week, new day, new post! Hope you all had a great week and weekend (well apart from my homie Gabi who was in an accident :( )..

So last week was a bit more calmer than the one before, I needed that so much as I was knackerd last week, it feel good now and im ready for more adventures now! Oh we got some snow in valence a few days ago, well if you can call it snow? its a little white dust on the roofs and cars.. lol.. Here look:

(not as much snow as sweden and england has.. hehe)

School was as always, good, some obidient pupils as always but what can you do? (well I did give detention to 2 of them :p ). It was also Nacira´s birthday so me and the two Aurélie bought her some really yummy luxurious chocolate from a local chocolate shop that I had not noticed until now. The man working there was so passionated about his chocolate he talked for ages about the different flavours and stuff like that.. lol.. and we got to taste stuff aswell. Nacira was very happy with her present.

Oh on Wednesday was (FINALLY) the premier of the new Harry Potter movie here in France. So I went to see it with my american friend Jamie. Unfortunally they only show french versions here in Valence we had to see it in French. Strangly it went well, you could understand 90% of what was said and I loooved the movie. I just have to see it in English now when I get home. Oh the best part of the movie which made me laugh and that was many times was when they said wand in French = Baguette LOL.. and you know its harry potter so they use the word alot. The first time they said it I was actually looking after a baguette *blush*.

This weekend Isabelle stayed in Valence cuz the school had "open doors" for the families of future students on the Saturday, so her boyfriend came over and I decided to stay out of the apartment as much as I could :p. So friday evening after dinner I met Jacob, Jamie and some other people from their foyer on the Irish Pub that is really close to where I live, the place was EMPTY which was strange as it was friday evening but it seemed like all of Valence was in another bar called Webster (who had a live reagge band playing). So everyone went there after a drink at the Irish place and I went home.

Saturday I met Jacob, Jamie, Sophie and Sarah (the english assistant gang) at the gare(station) to take the train to Lyon. We had a whole day in Lyon doing some shopping, visiting the miniature/cinema museum, visisting the christmas market, having a great dinner at Pizza Pino and of course  tea at Starbucks before taking the last train back to Valence. Here are some pics from the Lyon trip:

The museum has 4 floors

As a Star Wars fan I just HAD to take a pic

Group pic

A miniature asian room

A miniature barber shop

Miniature shoes

Us having some fun at the museum.. lol

this is a really cool lamp shop, you buy these small light balls in diffrerent colous and you can hang them on your window or hang them on the x-mas tree.. its really cool you choose what colours you want. I wish we had it in sweden.

Notre Dame (lyon) by night

X-mas market in Lyon

The ugly x-mas tree (who puts umbrellas on a tree?)

Straight after coming home from Lyon I went over to my chilean friends and we went out to dance a bit in a new club that I had not been to. So here I am with Roxana and Daniela.

Sunday afternoon, I, Daniela and Ricardo went to the little town called Romans that is 20-30 mins away from Valence as they were having an historical walk there. The president of Happy People Romans had organized it. The three of us were the only ones from Valence and then there were 3 others from there. We had a great time walking listening(in French) to the historical facts about the buildings. 

One of the old houses

This is the stairways to the oldest house in Romans

The president of HP Romans, Eric lived in the oldesnt house and he invited us to have tea and eat roasted chestnuts that were delish.. I ate so much that I didnt have dinner that evening. It was nice as the whole walk and the chat in his apartment was all in french so we got to practice the language.

Well that was it, this week im not sure yet what I will do. Probably hang out alot with my friends as its only 2 weeks and 4 days left I have here in France. Time sure has gone fast, as they say, Time flies when you are having a good time. 

Until next time prenez garde!

Bizz

Song of the day: Just realised I haven´t had any music of the boys (il divo).. so here you have their only recorded french song: Pour que tu m´aimes encore!

L´assasymphonie....

Salut mes amies!

Im back from a WONDERFUL time in Paris! But lets start with the days before that.

As you all know I saw Shakira last tuesday but what did I do after that.. Well loads of things:

Wednesday aftrer my lessons in the evening I went to play some basketball with 2 of the student recidences here in Valence. I had a ball, hadn´t played basketball in 9 years so it felt nice to be back in the game. We played for 2 hours (which was long but we were having so much fun that we didnt want it to end). I even scored 8 points for our team. After I went for a quick COCA (coke in french.. lol) with Happy People).

Thursday I had NO lessons.. woho.. so I sleept alot and then got ready for my french lesson. Afterwards I met Celine, the french woman who wants to learn Swedish. She works in St. Perey where I take my French Lessons so we went to her office and sat there and talked for an hour or two then she gave me a lift home.

Friday´s lessons went fast. I did some dictation with the older kids and they LOVED it (dont ask me why?) they even seemed to want me to give them grades on it (but I didnt hehe). Afterwards I met Cécile to go to Valrhona! The shop of the "luxury" chocolate Valrhona. The shevles were FULL of chocolate and you could taste them all, I tasted the same truffle 4 times.. LOL it was sooo yummy. I bought some chocolate with me, my favs and the best part apart for the tasting bit is that they give you extra chocolate as a gift !!!
So this is what I bought;

and this is what I got for free (this is my kind of shop)



After the chocolate shop I had to do a quick dinner, do some landury and pack my bag fast before leaving for the South American Music Concert that HP had organized.. The concert/party was a hit. David a guy from Chile and his friend played some latin music for us and we all had something to drink and eat with us. It was a nice evening.

David playing the flute and his friend the guitar

The latin gang, from the left: Manolo (Brasil), Moi, Roxana (Chile), Daniela (Chile), Ricardo (Chile), Diana (Peru).

Saturday: I woke up early to do the final packing and took the train to Paris. I had planned to sleep the 2 and a half hours to Paris BUT I borrowed a book from Auré called A year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke. A really funny book about an english man who gets a job in Paris and all the cultural clashes he comes across.. You can recognize yourself in the book if you have been in France for a while, thats what makes it even more fun. I couldnt stop reading so I read half of the book on the way to Paris and the rest on the way back..Now im in book nr 2 Merde Actually. I really recommend the book to everyone! Well I met up with Mai in Paris as we arrived at the same time but different stations so we met in the middle. It was soo nice seeing Mai again and be able to speak Swedish again (apart from the phone calls with my mum). I found it a bit difficult at fist as I use mostly English so sometimes I said some words in English to Mai when I couldnt find the Swedish one.. LOL.. Before checking in to the hotel we went to Pigalle to visit the Swedish shop called AFFÄREN! Oh we were in heaven when we entered it. They had EVERYTHING you can imagine being swedish.. I bought some cripsbread, Nyopnsoppa (rosehip soup), sweets, plopp and some Dill Chips for my american friend here in Valence.. hehe..

                                                                The lovley shop:

The window, with the Lucia train, Christmas star, Gingerbread house ect..

As we took the metro to the hotel we passed the station where the Swedish institute is

After checking in at our OK hotel (the room was quite small but it was nice located near Gare du Nord) we headed off to the centre to have a brunch at Angelina´s, a wonderful salad and some yummy pasties for dessert.

This is me outside my restaurant

The ferrisweel was back by place de la concorde.

Just between Concorde and Champs Elysée they had a christmas market and we bought some really good strawberried dipped in dark chocolate..

After visiting some shops in C.E (without buying anything) we were by the Arc de Triumph.. Which was shining beautifully that I had to take a pic of it.. :)

We went home for a quick change of clothes and some make up retouch and then we headed off to the arena where Mozart was being shown. But we were there a bit early so we had a nice dinner in a restaurant infront of the arena. We both had a yummy Smoked Salmon Club Sandwich. Before taking our seats I bouht a Mozart Blinking Pin (I am an IDsow.. we like blinking stuff lol) and a poster that I can hang beside my LRS poster in my room) and the we passed the bar to buy some Vodka (absolute Vodka of course) and some Sprite to make a drink.. hehe..

Here we are with our yummy drinks waiting for the show to start. They were showing ads for other shows coming up in the screens and one of them was called Mother Fucker.. LOL.. I laughed when I saw it..

The show started.. and the person in all white is the main reason I wanted to see this musical.. his name is MERWAN RIM.

A cool act

the end of the show.. the main characters giving a bow..

We decided to wait after the show to see if we could get some autographs and we saw THE WHOLE cast.. and we got our tickets signed from the 3 main male actors/singers.

This is Florent (mr hunk) Mothe who plays Mozarts enemy.

Merwan (cutie pie) Rim who had different characters in the show

Mikelangelo (must be gay lol) Loconte who plays MOZART

We got home around 1 a.m, tired but very excited after the amazing show we saw and meeting the cast. Here we are happy with our signed tickets.

We talked for at least 1 hour so we went to bed around 2-3 and got up at 7 the next morning *yawn*.. we had to get up early as we were visiting Versailles. We wanted to be there as early as possible. We had breakfast at the hotel and then took the metro and RER tain to Versailles. As we were there quite early there wasnt really a queue, which was nice. But the bad thing was that the weather was horrible, it was cold and raining.

Here is Versailles

Le Roi Soleil :p Not as hunky as Manu Moire in the musical.. hehe

They are having an exposition of a japanese cartoon artist. It was really wierd to watch all the old stuff mixed with the modern cartoon thingys..

The house was enormous but this was one of my second fav place of the palace, the mirror room.

King Louis XIV bedroom (where all the action happened, as ppl from the Cribs would say)

Marie- Antionette.

This room was my fav in the palce, Marie-A´s room.. So girly and nice.

After having seen most of the rooms we took the little train that took us around on the HUGE gardens (we were too cold to walk)

Us making faces in the train.. lol

The dragon fountain

After Versailles we took the RER back to Paris and had a nice lunch by the Tour Effeil. It was quite foggy so you couldnt see the top of the tower.. Is it just me, but isnt the tower quite boring in the daylight?

We walked by Troccadero (aka SebbieLand) and continued to Champs Elysée to visit some shops we missed the day before and Mai had to get the Merde book.. hehe.. I also wanted to have the chocolate stawberries again.

Before heading back to the hotel to get our lauggage we walked by the ferriswheel that was shining.

After getting the bags we had to say goodbye to eachother.. It was a sad moment.. we had such a good time we didnt want to leave.

Me and Mai looking sad.

As I said before on the way back I finished the book and I arrived back in Valence by 22 in the evening and got almost straight to bed as I was soooo tired. Still am.. haha.

Well that was what I did last week.. it was packed with actvities that im thinking of taking it easy this week, but you know me if something fun turns up im off to do it.. Life is to short to miss out on fun things..

Well I better go and plan my lessons for tomorrow now! Hopeyou havent found this post tooo long and borning.. haha..

Will be back later in the week with a new and hopefullly shorter post.

Have a good week everyone!

BIZZ

Ps.. This weeks song will be a song I had a few weeks ago L´Assasymphonie, but it suits as its from the musical I saw this past weekend! Oh and for you who has Facebook if you want to see more pics I post them on the FB page..;)  Oh and you who follows this blog, please leave a little comment after reading, Its fun to see what you think and to see who is following it..