Annecy in January

Photos taken around the lake today

Around the lake (next to the casino), there's an enclosure with some animals.
Here's a turkey

Ooh look at the pretty peacock!
(or is it a "royal turkey"? lol --> un pavo real in Spanish)

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.

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.

Happy New Year 2009! - Holiday Recap

Bonne année, bonne santé! :-)
Before I get into my new year activities, I think I should briefly recap my two weeks break which officially ends tomorrow! Oh noooo lol.

Well, it seemed as though I was not to have any fun over this vacation! All my plans fell threw one after the other, and as a result I was all alone for Christmas in Chambéry. Clearly... this was no fun! but at least I had a decent Internet connection which enabled me to spend the day watching movies and talking to my mom online. Similarly, plans for New Years initially also sont tombés à l'eau. On Monday, however, I moved into a studio apartment next to one of my collèges. The next day (30th dec) I visited Lyon in search for a television! While I didn't get a TV, I did get a nice pair of boots lol.:-) and had my first taste of Subway (veggie sub) in France. Anyway, so when I returned to my apartment that night, I was pleasantly surprised to see a yellow post-it note on my door - it was from one of the principal's daughters (my neighbour), inviting me to go to Lyon with her on the 31st! Wooo hooo!!! Yes yes yes, I accepted! lol

So the next day (31st), the both of us took the train from Chambéry to Lyon (1h30). There we met one of her friends, who took us by some of his friends. Music, drinks, apéritifs, guys:-) (got to speak a lil Spanish!), etc. After staying there for a while, most of the group left and took the métro to Gare de Perrache. There were no controllers that night and there was wrongdoing lol!

Anyway, so once we were at Perrache, the group of us went to one of the guy's apartment (located next to a prison... weird!). I think I heard Britney Spears - "Womanizer" a million times that night! But latin dancing with my new friend from Lyon made up for that! :-)

Soon it was officially 2009!!! There is no public transport after midnight, however, we all left the apartment... to go where exactly? lol. Well, at 12:45am, our walk started. Some minutes later, we were walking past Place Bellecour where there were some police officers (la BAC - Brigade Anti-Criminailité de Lyon). So I just said by the way "C'est pas le moment de faire des conneries!". Well, five minutes later...all of a sudden, like something out of a movie! we see a black car reversing through the street in our direction! Car stops, police jump out and stop two of the guys in our group. (At this point in time, the rest of us were standing a distance away monitoring the situation! Are they going to get arrested? For what?). Well one of the guys had pushed a metal railing at the side of the road (too much to drink perhaps?), and that had apparently upset the police! Fortunately, after a little while the BAC let them go, and the walk continued.

During the walk there were lots of people around saying Bonne année, bonne santé! and there was also a random guy claiming to be Hitch for les coeurs brisés lol. The group eventually split up as some people went to a club on the river, and one of the guys who was almost arrested disappeared and reappeared periodically during the night (too much alcohol? lol). The rest of us continued our walk to my nieghbour's friend's apartment on the other side of Lyon (where we were when we first arrived in Lyon, close to the Gare Part-Dieu)! We eventually arrived there 1h45 mins after we began walking! Exercise for the new year!!!

At the (really nice) apartment, we all relaxed for the new year, with music, drinks, a homemade tuna and tomato cake (tasted good!), I made friends with my latin dancing partner lol, and soon enough everyone was asleep. Later that day, croissants/pain au chocolat/tea/coffee were available for breakfast, and we laughed at funny videos on http://www.nanarland.com/. That evening I returned to Chambéry, happy for a time well spent:-)

Yesterday I visited Annecy. At first I was on the wrong part of the train, which apparently separates to go to Geneva! Annecy was nice (as usual) and I got to do a little shopping (yay, FNAC! lol). At least I had some fun during the break:-) Tomorrow, it's back to uni and teaching...

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!!!:-)

Wow!!! What a pleasant surprise!!!!

Today was the Retour des Alpages in Annecy. (see programme here). I went with some language assistants (British, American, Italian, and Spanish). It was a really nice day, sunny, and lots of things too see: animals, people wear traditional clothing, folk music, etc. But that wasn't the pleasant surprise lol. Here goes...

At lunch time, the Spanish guy, Italian girl and I left the other assistants to find something to eat. The three of us were walking along Rue Grenette when all of a sudden I hear (girl's voice) "ALICIA ...!!", in fact my first name and last name!!! Turned around and there is another fellow Trinidadian, and more than that, we both went to the same high school!!!!!!! I mean, whoa!!!!! In France?? In Annecy?? I live in Chambéry, she is currently on a semester abroad in Versailles, and somehow we ran into each other!! I knew she was in France (thanks Facebook) but had no idea she would be on this side, and I don't think she knew I was in France. I haven't seen her in about 2-3 years, and though we weren't in the same year at school it was just sooo nice seeing her!!

Almost 3 weeks in France!

Yup, tomorrow will make trois semaines since I've been in France! And what a time it has been so far!

Week 1

After a nine hour flight, a day in London, short flight to Geneva, I finally arrived in Chambéry by train on the 15th September. My first week was spent by a very nice English teacher and her family in the countryside.

To summarize the week (instead of writing a novel lol), I visited one of the schools where I'll be teaching, went jogging around a track with my host teacher and another English teacher from the school, had an interview at the Université de Savoie, got the cold, drank half a bottle of Buckley's Cough & Cold, felt cold, injured my big toe and ankle, bought my first pair of boots (though with the injury I couldn't walk too well in them), bought a French sim card, and spent lots of time walking around Chambéry centre.

Week 2

On Sunday, I moved into an apartment!! I found the place through an agency, and I'm in fact sharing with a French lady who is also the owner. The apartment in located in Chambéry centre (yay!!), and I have Internet access, TV, a full or queen size bed (I'm not sure), a proper kitchen to cook in, etc.

On Monday I had to go to another interview (this time in Spanish) at the University. Interesting... since I haven't done much Spanish in the past three years. A few hours after the interview I received a lovely email... I got accepted to the university to pursue my masters in International Management!!

There was also language assistant training in Grenoble and Autrans this week from the 24th to the 26th September. I met up with the Spanish assistante who is teaching at my second school. At the stage in Grenoble, we met other language assistants in the Académie de Grenoble, walked around Grenoble with two German assistants, and took photos :-) Buses took us from Grenoble to Autrans (a little mountain town). Needless to say, Autrans was cold!! I dunno how people live there... Anyway, so assistants had to share rooms; there were 6 of us in my room: me, the Spanish assistant, two English assistants, one Scottish assistant, and one American assistant.


We went to a bar nearby on both nights spent in Autrans... the bar was nice and warm, and smoke-free! I appreciate the law against smoking in public places. Language assistant training was boring/unnecessarily long for the most part, the food was fine I guess (though as a vegetarian I had to eat a lil more bread to compensate), and I met the only other Caribbean assistant in the Académie, a guy from Jamaica.

Oh, during this week I also started to feel like my normal self, pre-France.

Week 3

I visited Annecy with my Spanish friend (aka the assistant) on Saturday afternoon. Annecy is really, really pretty, and even though we only spent about 3 hours there, we had a good time visiting the lake (including via Le Petit Train), and walking around the old town.


On Sunday I went to the braderie in Chambéry which is a street market which takes place twice a year.

I started classes at the university on Monday!! That was interesting, and felt good to be productive!!!

On Wednesday (1st October) marked the start of my teaching contract, so I went into my main school. On Thursday, I went to the main school and also to the second school for the first time. There'll be more on teaching later on.

Now, Sunday 5th October (which can be considered the beginning of a new week - 4th), I'm getting ready to visit Lac du Bourget (the largest lake in France) with some students from the university. Time for me to get ready! :-)