Officially on vacation!!!

Happy New Year!!! Bonne année!!! Feliz año nuevo!!!

I probably should have posted that about 3 weeks ago lol. Anyway, well today I had my last exam (which was crap by the way) and now I can finally breathe!!!

Alright, so a few things have happened since my last blog post. I went to the Fête des Lumières in Lyon. Fantastic! I enjoyed it more than last year:) and had great company. Let's see, I also turned 23! (getting old-ish lol). My holidays were great too! Christmas day in Annecy followed by a few days in Grenoble with some fellow Trinis (we also went skiing!), then back to Chambéry for one day, then New Years in Lyon. It snowed a few days before Christmas ... the snow then melted, no snow ... then boom! 30 cm snow of snow in one night, just in time for the rentrée (4th Jan)! I've since changed my footwear lol. January has been a lot less fun /à la limite assez stressant! because I was pretty busy with uni (project, business game and exams).

Anyway, the next thing on my agenda is ... Spain! Well, that's if the Préfecture gives me some sort of récépissé/carte de séjour in the next 10 days! Ahh, the usual ... sigh. *Patience, patience*

Here are some pics from December and January. Enjoy!

Christmas lunch in Annecy

Sign at the youth hostel in Grenoble. Interesting English lol

Téléphérique in Grenoble

Chamrousse ski station

Pics of Chambéry - nice day, beginning of January

Les Eléphants - in Chambéry of course!

And then it suddenly snowed! --> no class + no buses = I stayed home :-)

I've arrived at uni! Umm, perhaps I won't take that dangerous path/descent with all that snow!

Ski station? Nope, snow at the Université de Savoie
The library is in the background

Oh look! A snowman at uni!

Winter in Jacob Bellecombette

La Croix du Nivolet in the distance

The snow has finally melted. Today was foggy.
This is the same field that looked like a ski station.

The snow has begun

View from my window yesterday morning:
Well I wasn't particularly thrilled. However, fortunately it didn't snow heavily! Similarly, I appreciate that the snow didn't begin earlier in November like last year. :-)

Update

A lot has been going on lately. I don't feel like blogging when I'm stressed / matters are unsolved ... hence the delay. Anyway, here's the gist of things:

I'm back at uni! :-) Lol, feels good to be productive! Anyway, so far so good.

I'm no longer an English-language assistant. My contract got renewed (same two collèges like last year). However, I resigned because I didn't have enough free hours in my uni timetable to fulfill my teaching requirements. In addition, given that the Préfecture also sent me a letter asking what I'll be doing "réellement" this year, "soit assistante... soit étudiante", perhaps it wouldn't have been possible to do the two again ... at least not on a student carte de séjour. Anyway, I sincerely hope that my schools don't go without an assistant this year!

Similarly, I had to give up the apartment reserved for the language assistant. I went through some stress to find suitable accommodation, but now I'm sharing an apartment with three colocataires in Jacob Bellecombette, just a 10 minute walk away from the university. I found the apartment on www.appartager.com.

I've met up with a friend from back home who's now teaching in Annecy! It's cool having someone from Trinidad in the same region :-)

This September, like last year, I got the cold (not swine flu!). Oh, not to mention that I've gotten the cold again! It's October, ridiculously cold (from summer to winter in one week!) and I've got a pretty persistant cough... which will soon go away!! Just about two weeks ago a uni lecturer held one of my classes outdooors! (The classrooom inside the building was really hot!) Anyway, that's no longer the case. I guess it'll snow in November (like last year!).

After roughly three weeks of walking around with an expired récépissé (no fault of mine!!!) and the letter from the Préfecture asking what I'm really doing, I finally received a new récépissé on Friday. :-) Hopefully I'll get the carte de séjour before it expires.

Learning to Ski!!!

Last Saturday, I finally went skiing for the first time!

View at Les Contamines-Montjoie
(N.B. I did not ski on these advanced slopes shown in the video lol, but did enjoy recording anyway!)

Actually, one of the associations at my university organised a Journée Glisse, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try it out! 25€ included transport to and from Les Contamines-Montjoie in Haute Savoie (which entailed reaching the university at 7am to get the arranged bus), and lunch (or pique-nique as it was called) and some light snacks in the afternoon. I rented ski equipment (skis, boots, and poles) separately for 15.30€.

I must say that a lot of people were very helpful (merci beaucoup!!!), e.g. one friend lent me ski clothes, another taught me how to ski and let me sleep over by her after the trip (no buses after 8pm, remember!), and one of the teachers at my school lent me a pair of sunglasses to combat the snow & sun combination!

To be honest, I had ups and downs that day:
Walking what felt like at least 400m in ski boots on the side of the road to reach the ski station (not fun, lol), learning how to ski (fun), not knowing I was supposed to let go of the ride thingy and bouncing into the protective cord barrier which saved me from falling down a mountain (not fun, but at least I didn't die so I probably shouldn't complain lol), falling on my side on the snow (not fun but bearable), learning how to stop/brake (the fun really began!!!), sunshine!! (fun), lovely views (fun), waiting an hour in the cold after skiing (not fun!! I was just too tired and tooooo cold, to the point that I was unable to laugh at the students' sumo wrestling competition, and eventually just made my way to the bus!! (fun! lol). I was much better then, and especially after I took a nap on our way back to Chambéry.)
I'd like to give skiing another try!

Alright, time for some pictures!! Enjoy :-)

Alaska Store - rental of ski equipement. Such a cute town!

Heavy ski boots next to skis ... yes I was relaxing on the snow

I skied down the little slope to the left of the building)

The ride was fun! (left of the pic)

Cool... clearly I did not ski here! lol

Pretty!! Doesn't it make you want to ski?!

Mountains!

That ride again!

So much snow!

P.S. Three students from a high school here in La Motte-Servolex and their guide, died earlier this month in an avalanche at a different ski resort. Quite sad indeed, and a reminder that we're never 100% safe.

Swiss Trip: Lausanne!

Right now I'm pretty tired, but I'll forget about that and blog!! lol

Today one of my English assistant friends and I went to Lausanne, Switzerland. I really wanted to travel a bit and was so glad that she came along! Our day started really early ... I took the 6:35am bus from La Motte-Servolex to the train station in Chambéry (Gare Chambéry Challes-les-Eaux). About 15 minutes later I was at the station, waiting patiently for the 7:09am train to Geneva. My friend arrived a while after I did and then we hopped on on our train, yay!! As can be imagined, we were both really tired so early in the morning ... resulting in the conductor poking my friend to wake her up haha when he came to check our tickets.

About an hour and a half later we were in Geneva. Instead of waiting 10 minutes for the Geneva-Lausanne train we booked, we hurried onto another train to Lausanne that was about to leave. Yes, we were excited about the trip! But before that, of course we had to take free newspapers offered in the station (Le Matin Bleu and 20 Minutes). 40 minutes later... Lausanne!!! and boy was in COLD!!! Yup, like -2°C. I remember looking out from the train and saying "Oh no, why is there snow!!". Fortunately, it was a sunny day!

First stop: McDonald's for some hot chocolate. I didn't bother to buy any because I forgot my swiss francs in my apartment and didn't feel like using my card/euros to buy hot chocolate lol. After that, we made our way up a steep hill !!! Surprisingly, at around 9:30am it was just sooooooooooooo quiet!!! I must have said that a million times today! "It's soooo quiet! Where are the people?" haha. Anyway, our morning adventure took us to a tourism place where we got maps (very handy!) and some brochures.

Next stop: Lush. As we walked past Lush, I thought it was a candy store!! To make a long story short lol, we went in and spent like an eternity in there! It was fun though! The "candies" were really soap, shampoo, massage oil, etc. The sales girl was very friendly (the Swiss are really nice!) and it kinda took me by surprised that she addressed us using the tu form. After getting our hands washed with some moisturizing soap, hearing about a block of shampoo that apparently lasts for 80 lavages, and basically just smelling around the whole shop lol, we eventually bought some stuff (couldn't resist!).

At around 11am (we spent a long time in Lush!), our tour of Lausanne really began. We walked up a lot of steps to visit the Cathédrale de Lausanne which was built in the 13th century. Then we decided to walk to a nearby "green area" that we saw on the map. While it looked closeby, we took quite a while climbing uphill!!! The "green area" was also covered in snow!!!
We walked:

• past the Petit Château (which looked more like a regular house!),
• through some snow to the Hermitage (which seemed to be closed),
• past the Tribunal Cantonal,
• up some snow covered steps/thin winding pedestrian walkway to the Signal de Sauvabelin (640 metres, lovely views which compensated for the energy involved to get there!),
• along the road until we eventually reached the Lac de Sauvabelin. Funny thing though, the little lake was frozen lol. Some of the animals looked so cold, on the ice, motionless... I had to wonder if they weren't real haha. Part of the lake wasn't frozen though, and some ducks were enjoying the water.

There's a little restaurant next to the Lac de Sauvabelin. Clearly after all that early morning exercise we were quite hungry and after checking out the menu, decided to get something to eat. Well we were hoping for a chocolate place, thanks to the Chocolatière signs, but we found no such thing, hmm. Maybe chocolatière has nothing to do with chocolaterie? Anyway, at the restaurant by the little frozen lake, we ate lightly. I had a cheese sandwich (Gruyère cheese, thickly sliced bread, some green veggie) and a glass of sparkling apple juice in a Nestea glass (reminder of being in Switzerland: Nestlé).

After lunch, the walk downhill was a breeze! This time we walked along with road/pavement, which turned out to be not as steep as our pedestrain path uphill. Back in the centre ville, we walked past the Château Saint-Maire (which actually kinda looked like a castle, unlike le petit château. According to my tourist brochure, the Saint Maire, not Marie, is the current seat of cantonal government.). Anyway, we just walked past and took some quick pics. We walked around a bit of Lausanne and actually saw some people after a while hahaha, ok that might have been an exaggeration. Sure, there were people in Lausanne, but it just wasn't as busy as I expected it to be. We got some crêpes as well (sucre, cannelle, & citron). I liked seeing the crêpes being made. The crêpe man was friendly/chatty, and thought it was crazy that I left the warmth in Trinidad to come to Switzerland!

Soon we made our way to the lake, the big, real, unfrozen lake lol, Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). There, Lausanne began to look like the bustling student town that it supposedly is. There were some guys on unicycles, some teenagers skateboarding/trying to do tricks, and some little children playing in a park. I had a strong urge to go down one of the slides!! Lol, those little kiddies looked like they were having so much fun and my inner child wanted to have fun too. So you know what, when I saw an adult going down the big slide with a child lol, I couldn't resist! My friend and I climbed up the thingy lol and yes, we conquered the slide lol. I went first. When I sat at the top of the slide, eagerrrr to let go, the little girl who had slid before me kept standing at the bottom of the slide! She was just looking at me lol, while I just wanted her to move because obviously I didn't want to kick her by accident. Lol, anyway, she eventually moved and I had sooooooo much fun taking that one slide! *grin*

Lausanne is the Olympic Capital. As a result, we just had to browse the olympics stuff. There were some nice statues and of course museums (e.g. by the Parc Olympique Lausanne, there's the Musée Olympique and the Musée de l'Elysée, which is a photography museum). Well, we didn't visit the museums, nor the Swatch Store. We had about an hour and a half before our scheduled train was supposed to leave. However, we decided to take an earlier train back to France! As a result of this last minute decision, we got a whole lot of exercise!! as we hurried to the train station to get the 4:17 train from Lausanne to Geneva. Guess what, we got it!!! We arrived a little less than 5 minutes before departure.

30 minutes later we were in Geneva. Again, we hurried to get the train to France. I got a much needed nap on the train.:-) The train was going to Lyon Part-Dieu, so we had to come off in Culoz, France (which seems like the middle of nowhere). However, the train was running 10 minutes late, so when we reached Culoz, we just ran out the train straight into the train for Chambéry which was opposite. 2 minutes later lol, our Chambéry train left, and 30 minutes later, it felt so good to be back in Chambéry!!!

My two weeks vacation had its ups and downs (beginning right after the drama at the collèges, I destressed in Lyon, then I still had uni for the first week and the flu was unbearable!!!! (I eventually just had to stay indoors for a few days straight), and I also had a visit from the Jamaican assistant I met at the stage in September). Lausanne today was great, and I'm really looking forward to the rest of my vacation (especially since teaching/uni resume on Monday, *sigh... ok, let me try to think happy thoughts!*). Tomorrow--> lunch with the English teacher who hosted me when I first arrived, and personal weekend trip to Lyon :-). I really love all these holidays!!!!

Birthday Weekend

I turned 22 on Sunday!! I had initially intended on spending a quiet day, keeping warm lol, but one of the assistants encouraged me to do something fun! This year was the first time I spent my birthday away from home. Things went fine though :-)

On Saturday it was nice and sunny (although like 2°C) so we went to Aix-les-Bains (3 € round trip by train). There we walked through the town, walked to the lake, walked back to the town lol, had some delicious hot chocolate (chocolat chaud viennois) in a Salon de Thé, and visited the Christmas market. Oh, and later had store-bought pizza dinner in Chambéry.

Next day ---> Sunday, my birthday!!!! What did I do? Well, I hiked up a mountain with the same assistant friend! LOL, a mountain?? bet you didn't see that one coming... neither did I!!! I never would have imagined doing that, plus it was my first hike! We started in Challes-les-Eaux (one of the towns comprising Chambéry Métropole).

It took us 2.5 hours to hike up the 850 metre Mont St Michel (located in Savoie, and not to be confused with the exceedingly popular Mont St Michel in Normandy). It was a relatively sunny day, but since it had snowed some days earlier, the path was covered in snow! We even went off the path for a short while, but only realised this when we found the path lol.

At the top of the mountain there's a tiny chapel.

Of course the views from the top were lovely (e.g. the Alps, Chambéry Métropole, la Croix du Nivolet, etc)!!! I couldn't help wondering if I really did hike up a mountain!! Wow!!! There was also good cell phone reception up there haha, so I was able to call my family back home to let them know about my adventure!

There were some other people who also hiked up the mountain. I saw some cute doggies (lol, including one who ran away from his (sexy) owner and barked us... too cute though because he only wanted to play!).

Well, since this is Savoie, of course there were cows!

It was much faster coming down the mountain, 1.5 hrs! However, once we reached the road my feet were hurting. I guess I have to get used to the new sneakers I bought for the hike. As a result of my aching feet I almost missed the last bus back to Chambéry. Unfortunately, that night I wasn't feeling too great at all! I believe it was a result of my aching feet, tiredness and just poor eating this weekend. Sigh!

I went to Grenoble with some assistants on Monday evening to have pizza. The marché de Noël there was quite nice :-). I was quite tired on Tuesday, and with my feet not totally back to normal I had to forgo ice-skating! Well, today I was able to take advantage of a day of nothingness/rest/relaxation lol, except for a quick grocery run to Monoprix.

Snow, snow and more snow!

As the title of this post suggests, it snowed A LOT today!! I woke up at 12:30pm and it was snowing! In fact, last night it was snowing when I left to go ice-skating around 8pm... so I guess it has been snowing since then. Around 2:30pm today I went to Carrefour, tugging along my little suitcase to put the groceries in. Remind me never to go grocery shopping again while it's snowing!!! It's quite frustrating having to deal with the snow, trying to avoid slipping and potentially embarrassing myself lol. Nice to look at yes, but now all I want to do is cuddle up under my covers!!

Enjoyable teaching...encounter with a pervert...and skating!

Yesterday was an interesting day... good and bad!lol

In the morning I had two classes at one of my schools. The first class was so much fun. For a half hour each, I had two groups of pupils from 5ème (form 2), who were more or less quite enthusiastic!! (I love it!) Their teacher allowed to me to read dialogues to them instead of playing the relevant recording on the CD player. Haha, I enjoyed doing a bit of "acting", changing voices depending on whether the character was a boy or a girl. I can tell that the students enjoyed it. We went then through some vocabulary and pictures. The second class was 3ème (form 4) and I stayed with the teacher for the hour with the whole class. It was an interesting activity as he had the students imagining what they would carry if they were on a desert island and why!

Since teaching/classes are from 10 to 12 on a Tuesday, I usually stay for lunch at the school. The lunch is always very good, and vegeterian options are available! This Tuesday I had: vegetable couscous*, a cheese pie, green salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, salad dressing), bread, apple and raspberry crumble, yogurt, and water ..... all for the low price of 2.40EUR!! Yummy!!

* While I said that I never wanted to eat couscous again after the Marseille trip, I must say that the couscous at the school was very delicious!

After lunch I decided to walk from one school to another to see how long it takes (20 minutes). A little before I reached the other school (about 5 minutes away), a guy asked me something. Now the guy wasn't bad looking, seemed relatively normal, seemed to be like late teens - early twenties, short dark hair, brown eyes, blah blah blah lol ... he was a pervert so no need to elaborate! I didn't quite hear him, but when he repeated I realised he wanted to know the time. Being my friendly self (plus I was in a particularly good mood after teaching that morning), not thinking it was a pick-up line, I smiled and said "Une heure et quart, une heure quinze" then continued walking. Only that he started following me!! (Hint... don't answer/talk to perverts). So then he started telling me how I'm pretty, asked what I look for in men (no response!), if we could meet later, oh how to just talk to him for 2 minutes, how I have a joli cul (I quickened my pace but it's only so fast I can walk!!!), grabbed himself (no need to elaborate), made some sexual suggestions, and then like practically in front of the school I was walking to, the psycho reached out and grabbed my left butt cheek!!! I mean..... getting talks is one thing, but actually touching someone?? He has got to be losing it! By that time I was not being nice anymore, and since I don't really curse people in English lol and probably because of the shock of it all, the only French that came to mind was "arrête!!!! (stop)"... although he didn't stop, but by the second "arrête!!!!" he did!!! I hope I never see him again, and hope he doesn't trouble any of the students from the high schools!

That afternoon, I had two hours of teaching and it was quite fun! I did the same desert island activity with the students at the other school :-) Tuesday night it was snowing when I left the apartment to go to the ice skating rink... but that didn't stop me lol. It was soooo much fun!! Although for the 1h40 mins that I skated I had some almost close encounters with the ice (e.g. like when I sped up during Brick & Lace's "Love is Wicked" woo hoo, Caribbean music!!) and I fell once! It was cold!!! (I should wear gloves when skating), and since I had my cell phone in my right back pocket my fall was a bit painful!! (maybe I have a cell phone imprint? lol).

So yeah... enjoyable day overall minus the pervert episode!

Ice-skating, Préfecture, Marché de Noël!

On Tuesday night I went ice-skating with one of my language assistant friends. It was sooooo much fun!!!! At the skating rink on Tuesday nights there is a light show and music ... a bit like being in a club lol. There were lots of teenagers there. It was my first time ice-skating and I guess that all the inline skating I used to do about 10 years ago lol really helped out! I didn't fall, yayyyy!! although I did trip a few times lol during the two hours on the ice... I just didn't come in contact with the ice - very important lol! I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably at this sign that kept popping up on the big display screen at the rink:

Hahaha! I think the picture of the man/ass added to the comedy lol of this ad for some French association. At the rink, we were even treated to a short show from one of the teenager's there. She did some twirls n stuff on the ice, very cool! I think I'll be going ice-skating every Tuesday!!!

On Tuesday afternoon I had gone to the Prefecture to inquire about my récépissé or carte de séjour... I still didn't have anything and my visa is going to expire just now! Well, the lady I spoke to told me to come back on Wednesday morning to collect my récépissé. I did exactly that... and yayyyy!!! I got my récépissé on Wednesday. It's valid for quite some time so I don't have to worry about being illegal in France once my visa expires lol. Only problem is that if I go to England I may have problems entering France since I haven't received the actual carte de séjour as yet... I'm trying not to risk having any problems, so I think I'm going to be staying here for Christmas.

Yesterday, three of my assistant buddies and I went to Annecy to visit the Christmas market. However, the main Christmas market hasn't started as yet, so we went to another marché at the Impérial Palace Hotel. It was alright, but I personally think it was geared more towards children. There were stalls, Santa, reindeer, music, and even a Québecois stall, where we got crêpes and hot chocolate, yummm!

It also snowed a bit, awwww!! After the visit, we headed back to Chambéry.

Today was an interesting day. I walked to the university this morning because I was really tired and a little walk is good to get the eyes open lol. Plus, since I found out about the shortcut the walk only takes about 20 minutes. I guess I feel a bit lonely at the university sometimes... but besides that things are fine. I wish I had my Financial Management textbook (in English!) though! All this new technical vocabulary can be a bit confusing. Spanish was interesting, and I'm so glad the lecturer convinced me to do it instead of Français Langue Etrangère. After 3 years of not studying Spanish, it surely is coming back! yay!!! After a quick lunch, I went to teach at one of the schools. That was cool since one of the teachers had a great activity on clothes for me to do with the students. I plan to use it with my other classes tomorrow morning! Well, since my Spanish assistant friend returned to Spain, the studio apartment at the school is currently available. Looks like I'll be moving in for the New Year... the place is small but cute and cosy, 45 minutes walk from centre ville, not to mention ... the rent is pretty fantastic!!!:-)