La fin de l'annee

First thing, Amsterdam mannn! Was pretty sicko, rolled some fat spliff and listened to some raggaaaaaa, was induced into a click... 2 English guys, an Irish guy and an italian guy beatboxing troop called the bad boiz, wasn't given the name it just sorta happened...



Went to this bar restaurant where they had unlimited spare ribs for 9 euro! This is something you would never find in Paris, but the sight of a bar that kept bringing you spare ribs, with choice of sauces, all afternoon, with 10 tellys each showing a different live english premier league game; it truly was a moment to shed a tear. Definitely life is cheaper in the DAM!

Some other pretty amazing stuff happened, nothing beats a good beatbox version of Antony sucks with a thick Italian accent; I drank Magners for the first time in god knows how long...oh and I got a burger king for 2 euros... I thought that was pretty amazing...seeing how broke I've been the last couple of weeks!
Also managed to isolate and name the part of Amsterdam where the prostitutes are the most horrific, the circle of doom, as it was aptly nicknamed is home to only the most fat, hideous, unattractive prossys who I'm surprised aren't handing money over for people to go in there. Oh and the circle is around a church, of course, cheers amsterdam.
Tried to have the ethical debate conversation in French of whether you would sleep with a prostitute or not; money no object; and the Amsterdam safeguards in place. Pretty much failed to establish any kind of moral conclusion, and more or less wound up with: "If you do, don't tell your girlfriend". How very European... .. P.s for anyone reading i'm very much against the idea.. they should be paying me!

In general though, all jokes aside, Amsterdam is a very beautiful city. The people are really friendly, and despite the fact the first time I went I hated it everytime I go back I love it more and more. Strolling along one of the many canals, beautiful town houses around, the pungent smell of hash hanging in the air and the constant danger of being struck down by a bike make it an amazing weekend; fully recommended.
Found it quite amusing how the city has a 52% immigrant population, is bankrupt, has legalised prostitution and legalised cannabis and yet still it is a lot less seedy than huge swathes of Paris... tant pis!





Straight back into the work on Monday and I was part of a filmed round table discussion on vision with 3 of the leading scientists in the field! Very exciting, and very interesting!! The random things people do on the YA ey!! One guy was a bell end who just kept going "buy my book", to which i just wanted to respond look at my bank account,(£-248 english, 8 euros french and 1,70euro on a travel card). But it will be interesting to see that go on the net!
The next day I had a Stravinskian acting class in which we were forced to tell personal stories then the teacher linked them into a story and several skits; at the end of which several girls were crying and everyone felt a little worse for wear emotionally. Its very odd to think that with certain techniques out of a textbook you can draw on peoples darkest emotions and take them on an exhausting journey. C'est la vie!

So, this leads me to last night, a Christmas party at my new university home. Basically, made a deal with a German and an Irishman that I was gonna get fucking trashed, both these countries drink a lot better than the English.. and so apparently after multiple vodka and wine 'cocktails'(vodka and wine in a cup) I went to sleep in a cake, getting cake all over one of my favourite shirts in the process. Tant pis, it was good times !



Definitely starting to realise that this atmosphere is something i need to embrace, say just these guys i'm in a photo with... a French Canadian, a Czech republican and a Pole.Its really amazing just to talk to people about what, for example, they do for christmas, or just in general learning about different cultures from the people themselves! I'm definitely getting to like.. know the world and be cultured and shit. Yay for me!

Finally, I want to thank Ruth 'en rut' Walker for mentioning me in her blog, and put out an appeal to Jen Rawlings to write your one better. We all know you are a mess mongerer, but your blogs lack the cutting edge because you water them down into lame tales about broccoli and taking christmas trees on the metro. What about that time you fell in the bath and told jade to fuck off? What about that time you stood on a chair to 'talk' to the dj in the club and fell off? People need to know these things Rawlings, the internet calls you.

Anyway, i'm hopping on a Eurostar on Saturday, strike permitting. Theres an SNCF(rail company) and air traffic controller strike over the weekend in France; it sounds serious but it happens most weekends so all will probably be fine! Its going to be amazing to go home.. see the family,some old friends and chill out for a little while. This has been a pretty mental semester!! So wherever you are in the world, have a very merry christmas, and a happy new year!! Joyeux noel :)
xxx

Ive been Angers & Angouleme but ive never been ta wigan

Puuuutain, so much has happened. First of all, I live in the above red building now, right on the university campus. Goodbye 70 minute commute and hello rolling out of bed at 10 to 9 for a 9am lecture :) Still not the greatest area to be in, but, n'importe quoi, point is I wont be walking round it 11 o clock every night after lectures. Also theres a microwave, a luxury I did not have in my previous residence, so I will be getting on down to M&S Champs Elysee at the earliest available opportunity to get me a microwave balti.

Since my last post all this has happened:
-A weekend in Angers with Beth and J-dog. It was a catholic town, and as such, they don't like it when boys come to stay in either of the girls' dorms, which I found out to my dislike when at midnight a young ethnic man who called himself the receptionist chased me down the hallway waving his arms and shouting 'les garcons sont interdits'. As if to make some kind of point, he showed us that in the visit book my visit was recorded as an 'amie de bethany'. Oh that little e causing so much trouble. I mean in all seriousness, piss off France.
Anyway, he was nice enough to let me stay so thus begun the weekend. They have made a nice group of assistantship friends and we all had some general fun eating crepes, drinking wine, going to the fair and to a couple of bars. Then went to this guys house for a roast(hes some ambassador for the twinning of Angers to Wigan.. even though hes never been.. obviously)... it was amazing!! So good to have a good roast beef with all the trimmings, and the frenchies there loved it too!
The thing that really stuck with me from this weekend though, was the sheer number of times I was offered a cup of tea. Must have been at least every 43 seconds, good work girls <3

-My Birthday
Went to see the Paris christmas lights get turned on by Amelie(Audrey Tatou). I saw her, id give her a 6/10. She would get it, but don't get the fuss I'm not gona lie.
Ruth Walker said my blog was shit, I'm still recovering.
Went on a wee bar crawl on Wednesday and Friday for my birthday, late back both times because last metro was missed!! haha, only one thing to do when that happens!! carry on drinking!!

-Work
French University seems to follow the following pattern; drop in and out of lectures for 6 weeks whilst deciding what to do, have normal lessons for 2 weeks and then go MAD. All of a sudden over the last two weeks I have had an absolutely crazy amount to do, working so much! Tant pis, c'est la vie!

-Angouleme


Went to see Macarena in Angouleme, quelle belle ville!!(et fille evidement!) It was so so pretty, it was a proper year abroad place, a boulangerie on every corner and a fountain on every square. It rained all weekend unfortunately, but it was still superb fun. Met some interesting characters too... I say no more.
Walked into the Jamrag's house and she explains that the atmosphere would have to be romantic and candlelit... due to having no lights. Upon inquiry, the bulbs had blown and she didnt know how to replace them. Drunkenly got a knife out when we got back from the bar and undid the light fittings, on reflection, a bad idea, but it got the job done. This in a weekend I also fixed a hairdryer, hashtag manly win.
Asked for a guided tour come Saturday, Hayley leads me out the door, round the corner, and my FIRST landmark was where her friend Miss Heston had pissed a few weeks earlier. I'm planning a similar tour of Paris, but of everywhere a tramp has pissed. It may take a while....
Ate another roast (nom nom nom) and came home to my new room :)

Its been a mad time, must get back to work, and I will be off to Amsterdam on Friday morning for an end of term celebration with lots of Erasmus friends.
A plus
x

This is why you live in a capital city..

Waited ages for my two favourite DJs to play in Paris, as was told that they regularly do... and what happens... they announce a gig together....

As Beth said when listening to Fix you by Coldplay, wait for the Drop....

Madeon


Russ Chimes



8th December baby. x

Quick me out

My apologies for a long absence, I never realised how much I depended on my laptop, especially out here! It broke and I felt like I had been plunged into some kind of weird abyss.

No more skype, no more facebook, all my ties with England cut. It was very weird!!

I went home for almost a week to try and sort my life out a bit last week, it feels like ages ago but like was only 2 days ago that I got back! Good news is, life is generally sorted! :)

You know that, you feel alone and a bit crazy bit of the year abroad people sometimes talk about, well yer i definitely had that for like a week! Very odd, my advice to anyone else that gets it is to try and stick to everything that makes you happy for a little while... eg in Paris I stayed in the areas I love and met up with lots of people, and didnt go anywhere near Gare du nord for a while. It worked! I think to an extent Paris can probably do this to you as much as anywhere else, theres even a syndrome named after the acute sense of disillusion Paris can bring you.



Its called Paris Syndrome, and is paticularly prevolent among Japanese visitors to the capital, where the distance between the idealised image of Paris in their culture and the reality causes them to become depressed to the point where they are unable to exit a trance like state. Theres a special centre in the Japanese embassy for them to all go.... Whatever your thoughts on this are, the thought of that centre is really, really funny...


One thing I certainly love about France is the Faux-pas that come about from using English so much. Its nice to know that while we are wandering about failing left, right and centre to master the language and culture barriers that inhibit everyday life they are equally inadept at using English even though they feel necessary to do so on a regular basis. Let me give you some examples::

-I recieved an event invitation from a club called Caves Saint Sabins, which is one of the only clubs in Paris to play dub and dnb music. The whole description, guestlist, drink offers etc where in French at which point the promoter signed off with... a samedi soir pour big motherfucking bass. I dont think this really needs translating...

-The Belgian restaurant chain Quick has outlets all over Europe except in the UK. The new takeout bag design demonstrates this with 'Quick me out' scrawled across it in large red lettering. Someone at the marketing department must be pissing themselves...

-I treated myself to a new DVD the other day, nothing too exciting, just the Hangover... or as they call it in France... 'Very bad trip'. Now far be it from me to correct this slightly odd sounding English, but believe me, going on a very bad trip is nothing like this film. And it wouldn't be set in Vegas but perhaps somewhere like.... Amsterdam??




Having said all this, when I returned to England my English was fairly bad, and I kept saying things in a very odd syntax. Leading my housemates to call me Frenchy. Cheers guys.

In other news, I had the fabulous Geo B come to stay, which was really good. And im off to see barcher and J-dog tomorrow.
Must remember to compost (determined to get this verb into the English language) my ticket.

x

At the moment

do you know what, im really bloody happy that i'm here.

thats all really.no moan.

beginning to see what people mean when they say erasmus is the maddest year of your life... I havent posted for 11 days because ive just been so madly busy! definitely in a good way though.

AND

the dogs not here for the weekend, so my clothing is safe... at least till monday :)

The one negative thing, its definitely starting again for all those in Southampton. Last night, I met a guy for the first time, and he said "oh yer you're the dj guy from facebook"....

fuck
my
life

Laters potatas x

Today

I was changing after a shower and the dog managed to open the door and attempted to eat my boxers. #nakedmanangryatdog

What I love about France & a weekend away

On Wednesday whilst heading to Les Halles shopping centre to purchase a new memory card(thats right--living the dream) the Metro stopped... AGAIN. This must be the 8th or 9th time since I've been in Paris that the Metro has literally just stopped with little or no explanation and doesn't resume for anything from 15 mins to 2 hours.

That France has better public transport is largely a myth, and another slightly 'grumpy old men' esque blog started to form in my head. Although the regional transport can be somewhat of a nightmare, however the TGV, train de grande vitesse is simply fantastic, and this leads me onto a new topic, there is actually some really great things about France.

So heres a list:

1.TGV- This weekend I visited Lille to see the simply lovely Miss Jennifer Rawlings and Miss Harriet Notton. It was so quick, I didnt even have time to finish my movie! I travelled at night so I couldnt see how far we were going really, just kind of turned up in Lille after not that long. It was literally about 50 minutes... 40 euro return and 1 hour, and its over 150 miles away. Never has travelling 150 miles been so easy! It might seem sad, but over the next 2 months I have planned trips to Angers and Angouleme, and its cost me so little and if those two weekends are anywhere near as banterous as this one, its going to be fabby :)

2. Bread- French bread is god. Several times ive bought a baguette, had some with cheese for Lunch and then wacked some salad and meat in it for dinner. Efficient <3

3. Sausages... are sick. expensive. but well good.

4. The randomness... Experiencing new cultures, as I'm sure everyone thats travelled knows can sometimes get you in the most bizarre situations. Last night I was in a beach themed bar, the Dj was mixing Nirvana with Grease lightening onto Placebo, then in barged a brass band, complete with HUGE tuba and started playing basket case by Green day. I was sipping a cocktail which was more rum than coke... You know what, it was just so France, and so funny.

5. Wine... is so cheap. And its almost impossible to buy a bad bottle, the least ive spent was 1,15. And it was nice, and 12%. Thats just so good!


6. Music... the lack of dubstep dissapoints me, although it does have a small underground following! But french hip hop is amazing, heres a sample from Sexion d'assaut::



and electro is huge here... amazing!


7. Sometimes the French attitude, which seems to be that nothing need be done in a rush can be infuriating, however, sometimes the lack of formality is extremely relaxing and refreshing. Kind of depends what kind of mood you are in and how important it is that the thing happening is to you!!



a bientot x

The warping of value that comes with living in Paris..

At the start of last week, I went to the Erasmus to sign up for my Monde en huit club card, which is basically a card which is for foreign students and gives a few discounts at club nights etc...

Heres a brief extract from conversation

Erasmus guy(mosse):Tu vient d'ou will?
Where do you come from will?

Me:Angleterre, pres de Londres!
England, Near London

M: ahh mon dieu! J'adore Londres. mes chassures vient de Londres!! et a boots, il y a le 3 for 2 sur lynx. c'est fantastique!
oh my god! i love london! my shoes come from london!! and at boots, they do 3 for 2 on lynx, its fantastic

Me: (laughing) oui, lynx est tres cher ici!
yer, lynx is well expensive here

Erasmus leader girl(Dahbia): Oui, et primark. j'adore vraiment primark.
yer, and primark!! i really love Primark!!


Now, ive seen girls go gaga for Primark before. And as I think I pointed out at the time, practically my whole outfit that day had been bought at the Spanish retailer.
But such excitement I have never seen for the boots 3 for 2 offer.

However, this young man is Parisien, and I completely understand him getting so excited over cheap deodorant.

In years gone by, Paris was expensive, some years ago I bought my girlfriend of the time and I a hotdog each and a coke in the shadow of the eiffel tower. Thats right... I know how to treat a lady...



It totalled over £25..



Now however, you have to practically sell your kidneys to afford to live here; that same bill would have probably now totalled over £35 due to the hellish exchange rate. You find yourself as a Brit practically willing the Greek economy to collapse as the fall out is likely to affect the Euro much more than the pound. (Greece I love you.. but you know.. I also love my internal organs...)


During the week, the socialites of the newly formed Southampton a Paris group met to take on the happy hours of Les Halles(and in Charlottes case... lose), and I found myself practically wetting myself at the prospect of a pint of beer for under 5 euros.
I almost had a heart attack when i saw a pint for 3,90(about £3.40).




At the trusty old Mitre back on the seedy streets of Portswood you can get a pint of Carlsberg for £2.29. In the sick filled cesspit that is Jesters such a thing would cost you just 50p on a Monday evening.

Girls on your year abroad you were told to be very careful about the length of skirts etc when out in Paris. I have the opposite advice, get them as short as possible, and flirt your ass off for drinks. It will save you a fortune...Either that, or do what Miss Osborne did on wednesday, which was forget to eat and get hammered off one drink...

But as I say, my sense of value, has literally been completely warped. To the the point where I was delighted to pay 6,50 for my KFC meal the other day, only to realise I had paid almost double what the equivalent would have cost in England.

Paris, you are a pain in the ass. x

Last night

We stumbled across a stunning fireworks display with Paris as a back drop on the stairs of Sacre coeur. I drank wine, and was happy. Then i went and boogied to Mr Scruff. Good times...


Then on the metro home...

I was still pretty drunk, and tripped on the step up to the train. I fell forward into the large metal pole which allows people to hold on when standing up.

A large group of Algerian men laughed at me. I pretended to be amused when actually it really bloody hurt..

And there you go, I think that short few hours is gonna sum up my year. Such accidental success and abject failure, just another year abroad student really...

Its only 21 miles but...

The British channel, the divide between England and France is both one of the smallest and most shallow seas in Europe. At the closest point, there is only 21 miles between our two nations, and yet, the gulf in culture is huge.

As those on their year abroad know, the continuing stream of faux pas that make up daily life proves almost hourly that these differences are much more than skin deep, that its much more than Cliff or Halliday, Voltaire or Locke, Turner or Cezanne.

No in fact, the people here are hugely different, don't get me wrong, I have met some great Frenchies already, but allow me please to highlight some differences:


1. Drinking on bridges
Last week I recieved a Facebook invite to predrinks... on a bridge. Somehow this is socially acceptable, a point further enforced by the fact this wasn't some random person who just decided on a whim to go drink on a bridge; this was the official Erasmus organisation. This means that at some point, people sat down in a meeting to put together an official timetable for freshers events, and this plan was formalised and printed. Brilliant. It is apparently a very common thing for young parisians to do, and there was a lot of other groups there doing similar.




2. Fighting... really badly
I want to stay well clear of a Jeremy Clarkson-esque rant about the French being and I quote 'cheese eating surrender monkeys. I actually quite like cheese, and monkeys, and in fact surrendering now I come to think of it...
I was talking to a German girl the other day and they have the same impression of the French as more than a little bit soft. I'm sure there are plenty of huge french guys who could finish me in one to one combat, however what I've seen so far has been nothing short of amusing.

Incident 1 happened at the Montmatre on my first Friday night on Paris, at the bottom of the Funiculaire,two huge black guys squared up to each other in a fight. Now, every night after consuming too much cheap vodka a couple of middle class white guys will decide they want a fight outside(insert name of portswood drinking establishment here). The results are usually fairly amusing, occasionally a little frightening but mostly quite harmless. However, I cannot stress enough, these guys were big big men. Shit was gona go down. But what ensued was, well, load the below youtube link and scroll to 50 seconds.
WATCH
It was a festival of slapping followed by them both being restrained and shouts of its not worth it. They were right, it really wasnt.

I witnessed another man at Pont des arts spoiling for a fight, he was largely just bumping into people and they were ignoring him... again... poor.

On the metro last night, a mans daughter was swinging on the poles in the middle of the carriage. Another male passenger decided to tell her off, this induced a sharing of insults and again the two men squaring up to each other. "I bet she will grow up to be a whore".... "I bet you are alone, you don't have kids do you". All a bit dramatic, the passengers were ready to jump up and restrain. However, they ended up angrily swapping phone numbers and decided to chat later.
Brilliant. Went out for a fight. Obtained a man date.

Don't get me wrong, this all works for me. I'm crap at fighting. I just think its in stark contrast to our culture! In parts of the north east you haven't had a good night unless you've had a fight...

3. Sex
All English girls on years abroad will have been told a lot to cover up on nights out. A skirt above the knee is practically an invitation to rape here apparently. Fantastic.. I'm fine with that. Well not fine, but I can make my peace with it. But don't you think this has a slight hypocritical ring when yesterday I was in Pigalle for a short while, where every shop has sex written in large letters across it; and the Sexodrome luidly brandishes bright pink lights to invite people into the M&S of sex; seven floors, one devoted to butt plugs.



4. Sleeping
Last night was nuit blanche, a night dedicated to art installations and basically, not sleeping. Around La marais and Pigalle, all the bars were full, and people queued for hours to get into small art installations and museums.
There was a 2 hour queue for a purple room in which they had created an artificial rain. Imagine that in England, at 4am, slightly inebriated, not making for the nearest taxi and to bed, but instead for a museum in which you are rained on. No, its in fact common place to get the first metro of the morning back home, then go in and a normal day at work. I really would like to understand how Parisiens manage to survive on this little sleep. I'm useless without my 8 hours..







An installation at nuit blanche











5. Humour
To foreigners. Wank jokes. Poo jokes. They just aren't funny. This isnt French people exclusively, but seems to be among the majority of foreigners. The only people that seem to share some of the mirth in being disgusting are the Germans. Who would have thought it...
The Inbetweeners this summer took a huge amount at the box office, and was a hit amongst young people in England everywhere. But i guarantee you at a showing in France, italy, spain etc a large proportion of the audience would either not laugh or simply walk out.

Anyway, I start classes tomorrow, I'm sure there will be plenty of chances to make a fool of myself there too :)
xx

Lesson 1 Week one in France

After having consistently berated those who make year abroad blogs, (why do I give a shit that the orange juice in cordoba is slightly more acidic than that found in tesco express) I was the other day convinced that in fact, writing some memoirs of this year would not be such a bad idea. Don't worry, I'm still not under the illusion that the whole world cares about what i'm doing abroad, but it shall make a nice self indulgent memoir for me about when I attempted to blend into another culture for another year.

For those that know me, please also realise that my attempted seemless transition into Parisian culture will fail. I'm not going to change my name to Claude, and buy an ornamental bird cage. I'm not going to attempt to grow a moustache and find a beautiful parisian girlfriend and speak in cliches for a year.

No, for those that don't know, my year will be spent in the ville rouges, so called because they are full of redbrick built social housing. Brick that was deemed too unsightly for the centre of paris, where only beautiful white brick is allowed.
I go to university in Saint denis, the town with the highest crime rate in France, and only 19% of crimes are ever solved due to the huge amount of gens sans papiers, making them virtually untracable. It also caused a rather awkward moment in the introductory lecture when a former student told us to "keep hold of our belongings" . I live in a place called Pantin, which is truly a place of bizarre contrasts where the charming old church faces two halal butchers who's owners seem to have not just a commercial rivalry but a strong dislike for each other and a beautiful park and canal adjoin a huge abandoned old factory. I'm only 10 minutes on the metro from the beaurgoise centre of Paris, however even this I believe will not allow me to integrate into a culture that shuns both Heinz Baked Beans and the drink of gods; Dr Pepper.

If you dont care about what ive done i recommend you scroll down a good few lines because for my loved ones...(hi mum and dad) heres a summary of my week.

-Went bowling.. won... standard
-Drank on some steps in front of a church.. classy
-Got all my uni stuff pretty much sorted for my first day of lessons on the 3rd.. difficult
-Got a job teaching kids english in after school sessions.. dollah
-Went to sacre coeur, notre damn, eiffel tower, champs elysee, invalides, pantheon... touristy
-Found a post it in my shoes.. bizarre
-Booked some concert tickets.. excitement :D


Its gonna be a good year, I'm mixing with people I would never usually meet and thats fantastic, it will hopefully broaden my mind in a way tourism never can. Did you know for instance that:

-Ruth's name means that shes sexually aroused in french
-In Spain, the heads of the table are called the brazilians
-In germany, they finish all lessons by everyone tapping on the table
-You can't buy blu tack in France
-Despite speaking the same language the accents and intenation of Portugese and Brazilians makes it almost impossible for them to understand each other
-If you are American, you need to have a chest X-ray to work in France

Just to finish, a couple of bits of advice for those leaving to go on years abroad over the next couple of weeks.

1. Your french is rubbish, misunderstanding is commonplace. You will nod like you've understood then think, crap, that could have been important. One such misunderstanding came about when I thought my flatmate asked me to empty the washing machine when in fact he was asking whether i liked rage against the machine.

2. Even if you understand words, loads have different meaning. I was a little bit creeped out when a guy I just met said en chante to me.. and retreated to my room. Only to find out that it just means nice to meet you, and does not have the romantic lets go out to dinner overtones that it does in English.

3.Bring blu tack.

4.Bring patience, paperwork in France is hell.


I will bore you again next week in a similar manner, heres one of the most exciting things I saw this week; an original street art piece by space invader. He is featured on banksys exit through the giftshop documentry :)








Tout a l'heure
Will x