Snow

Yesterday Jen, Jane and I went out for dinner. We were planning to go to Maitre courbou (fondu restaurant) but they required a booking if we wanted to be seated before 9. So instead we went to the Chinese restaurant near the foyer. It's a nice little place and not badly priced, I've been a few times now. I must name and shame though and say that neither of the other two even attempted to use chop sticks (or baguette chinois). I think I'd feel a bit funny eating Chinese with a fork- we always use chop sticks at home. Well ne who, while we munched our way through noodles and rice it started to snow outside. It had been doing it on and off all day, but this was mildly more impressive snow. Then after dinner Jen and I decided to get get some dessert from a little place just up the road. And the desert of choice... Ice cream!!! So at about 9 at night in the middle of a shower of snow the two of us walked along munching out ice creams. Fantastic fun- but very strange.
I had little hope that the snow would settle because everything was so wet (we had had a downpour of rain only an hour beforehand), but waking up this morning I was greeted by a white world.

I was so excited, snow is a smile maker. Getting to be the first one to walk across a clean patch of snow, hearing it crunch as you step on it, looking at the flakes and thinking how very clever God must be to create so many in so many different designs. Everyone else walking into work has had a smile on as well, which is great.
Now the sun has come out and the sun and snow look so pretty. Unfortunately it probably means there won't be too much snow by the end of the day, but it looks nice at the mo.

Find the faces

Can you find all 11 faces?
My colleague sent this too me this morning and so far I've only managed to find 10. Let me know how how you do.

Rain

Rain- it seems to be raining all the time at the moment. Monday was so wet that I spent the afternoon walking round the office in my socks to give my shoes a chance to dry out. No one actually noticed so I have no idea what people would have thought about it- but it was just too cold to sit around with wet feet all day. Yesterday was more of a drizzly day and today has followed suit- despite the sun we were told we might get.
Apologise for anyone who was hoping for a weekend update on Monday- I just wasn’t in the mood to write. I’ve been feeling really sluggish and a bit rubbish recently. Part of it is the weather I’m sure, and part of it is just getting a bit home sick. So to make up for it I shall treat you to a round up of the past week.
On Saturday after waving of Elaine, who is off home for the two week half term that all the assistants have, Suzanne and I went to Carrefour. As well as random food I bought myself a swimming costume (hmmm was about to write swim suit- have been spending way too much time around Americans). Suzanne goes every week and I thought I might join her. So I made her promise that she would make me come, so I can work of some of my winter insulation!! Lol.
Then in the afternoon we headed to the Lux to watch ‘the new world’. I mentioned this film to Jon and he said that he had never even heard of it, so I’m guessing it hasn’t come out in England yet. It’s the story of Pocohuntas and the English settlers. The trailer made it look like an action packed fighting movie, but it’s not at all. Admitadly there are a couple of fighting sence between natives and settlers but only like two. Most of it is a much more… artistic film with lots of pretty scenery showing the relationship between Pocohuntas and John smith. It was one of those long films (2h16) which I could have continued watching because it was just nice- didn’t notice the time at all. Only down side was the silly woman beside me who ‘shushed’ me for rustling a bit as I looked for something in my bag- silly woman.
Not really got much else to report- the rest of the weekend was fairly normal

Inspection

I managed to shock a couple of colleagues yesterday by turning up in a skirt, boots and generally looking very nice and dressed up (in fact I got an 'Oh la la" form one of them as I walked past- he was a bit taken aback!! lol). Turns out that the boots were a bad idea though. But the time I got to work (really not a very long walk) my feet were killing me. I had no idea how I was going to survive the day. Thankfully I had a tubey grip bandage (one of the cylinder bandages you use on wrists and ankles and the like). So I chopped it into two and wrapped it round the balls of my feet. With it my feet were still achy but bearable this time.
By the time I had patched up my poor old feet it was time to go down to reception and pick up... dun du duuuu.... my professors. For yesterday was the day for the second of my university visits, where someone from the university comes and checks that everything is going OK. And here was the reason for my dressing up.
Dr Neil Emmerson is the head of the department and my Placement tutor. So with this in mind all my log books have been written neatly and visits are greeted with smart dress (even though I never bother on other days). The visit consisted of us talking for a bit about what I've been doing, about what he thought of my report (the one I was stressing over before Christmas) and what I should put in my final report (due first week back after the summer).
He told me that he gave me 65% for my report, which is a good mark (2-1 if you prefer looking at it that way). I was rather chuffed about that.
Then it was a chat with my supervisor to find out what he thought of how I've been doing (he is please so that's all good) and then off to lunch. There were five of us and we all drove out to a nice little restaurant and had a leisurely lunch. In fact we left at about 12 and got back at 3!! it was quite a sneaky way of getting out of most of a day's work, hee hee.

Back home it was time for my room inspection. Brigitte came checked I had nothing on my window sills (stuff tends to fall of in high winds), check I had cleaned my bathroom, told me "You need to lean your shower more thoroughly", check my fridge and go. It took about a minute and yet I had to book an appointment for it and everything- very strange.

Oh and I learnt what the longest word in French is:
ANTICONSTITUTIONNNELLEMENT (26)

good few letters off ours:
PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOKONIOSIS (45) [lung disease]

The french word is also shorter than:
ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM (28)
ha ha we beat the French on that one!! lol

Lots of pretty pictures

Saturday Elaine

and I went and looked around the castle (chateau).


We found a bit that I'd never seen before which was exciting. This was another gate with a guard tower, with arrow slits and holes for pouring out boiling oil and everything!!!

We poked our noses into the ruins of what was the actual living quarters.



Unfortunately our noses were all we could poke in because it was all sealed behind a gate.

However looking at the drop into the dry moat around the house, I'm not surprised they didn't risk people going in and falling off the walls. The whole house was horribly damaged during the war and the bombing has left the wall only about a foot high in places.



It's quite extraordinary looking at the castle, seeing what an incredible building it is, and marvelling at how it has lasted.
Though bits of it are definitely feeling the test of time.


It's fun though and has quite a few little stair cases and holes


Which appear to come out into thin air- halfway up a wall!!


As well as the castle we went to Saint-Pierre and Saint-Jean (churches) to look round and see the photos they have of what the churches and the surrounding area looked like after the bombings. Then to the post museum. This might sound a little bit geeky and boring but it was actually immense fun. There were things little things like the language of stamps- the orientation of the stamp having a hidden message. And there was an old telephone exchange (coz the post office used to control the phones) and we must have spent about 45 mins playing with this thing. Unfortunately despite the instructions we never quite got it working properly (they forgot to tell up which hole was hole number 86!!)

Sunday because there was the churches general meeting thingy in the afternoon we didn't have choir, so instead Elaine and I went to the pictures. We went to see 'Good night and good luck' which is the film that George Clooney wrote, directed and acted in (quite an achievement really). The film was brilliant, but I can't remember the last time I had to concentrate on a film so much- I came out with a sore brain. The film is all in black and white which makes it a bit harder to concentrate on (I pity the French because the colour scheme meant that the white subtitles blended in with the picture half the time), it's also quite heavy stuff. The story is about the battle between TV and government over the actions of Senator McCarthy during his communist witch-hunt in the 50s. It is fantastic- though definitely not one to blob in front of!!

Scam city

Well yesterday I got my first taste of scam e-mails. I got an e-mail from 'e-bay' saying that my account had been blocked because they had registered users trying to access my account from a number of foreign locations. So I went through signed in and stopped.... here they were asking for not only all my bank details, but my security code from the signature strip on my card, and my ATM PIN! So I promply exited and changed all my passwords (only thing is that I hope I can now remember what I changed them too- I don't change them often enough). I cheched with both my dad and the real e-bay site and they said "SCAM"!!!! so if you get a similar thing- don't put any details in, it is a load of poo.

But apart from that mild excitement I had a fun day yesterday. Work was just work- fairly bog standard day really. Home time though was more interesting. I started off at the CHU tram stop, where the next tram was displayed as coming in "11 mins". OK plenty of time to walk to Copernic (the next stop). Got to Copernic- "7mins" strange should be closer to about 3! OK well keep walking 7 mins is loads of time to get to the next stop. Calvier St-Piere "4 mins", well judging on how quick each 'min' had been so far I went for the hatrick. Just as I was coming to CROUS-SUOPS the tram arrived, I debated whether to run for it or not, but looked at how crowded it was and decided that I might as well just walk all the way home. So I did. I have a lovely stroll across the university campus and then through the castle, to finally arrive at the foyer in time to dump by bag and go down to dinner. Twas a nice walk- me like.

After dinner several of us wandered up to 108 (one of the flats in the foyer) where I ended up staying till about 11. Larissa taught us a really cool game (whoes name I have completely forgotten) which consits of a four by four board and a number of different pieces. The aim is to make a row of four in any direction with peices which share a common characteristic: size, shape, colour or solid/partially hollow. Despite the fact that I managed to loose by completely missing a really obvious line, it was a good game. In my defence I was doing the Suduko in the daily mail at the same time (I know, excuses, excuses). Then it was a couple of games of rummy and snap- with rather funky beetles cards. Finally it was another daily mail puzzel, the one where each letter is represented by a number and a crossword type grid is filled in with the numbers and you have to work out which letter is which number and fill in the grid with letter and real words. I've never done one before but it was really quite fun.

God He reigns

Saturday I woke up at about 11 (shocking I know), and was quietly lying in bed when the phone went
"Hello"
"Sarah (with French accent)"
"oui"
"(translated)there is a package down in reception for you"
Now the last time I was called to say I had a packet it was because I had to sign for it (never understood why they couldn't have signed for me), so I jumped out of bed, grabbed some clothes, passed a quick brush through my head and headed down stairs. As it turns out Julian was just being nice and letting me know it was there, but I didn't mind being got out of bed in the slightest. For my packet was in fact a CD that my mum had sent me. So I took off my hastily donned clothes and got back into my PJs (Yes I was being an unbelievable slob) and put the CD on.
This CD was the new Hillsongs- God he reigns. I had listened to it when I was home for Christmas and fell in love with it. So I sat read my book, danced around and listened to both disks twice through each. SOOOOO GOOD!!! wow.

When I finally clambered out of my PJs I shoved them straight into my washing bag, did my weekly wash and wandered down to wish Elaine a happy birthday.
Unfortunately I managed to catch her when she was sleeping (afternoon nap- she hadn't been quite as lazy as me). However after a couple of mins she had woken up. And after many more minutes we finally decided to go out for a little walk- to fnac (fnac is kind of a bit like HMV, selling electrical items, books, music, dvds- the works). I was a bit naughty and treated myself to batman begins (watched it again Sunday- soo good), but oh well.
Mooching in shops such as fnac is really time consuming, so our walk really became just a trip to fnac as we headed back to round up the others before heading out to a little Chinese restaurant nearby for Elaine's birthday dinner.

On Sunday morning the choir performed resulting in my debut as a accompanying pianist. I was so nervous. Through all the songs before hand I was running through the fingering on the back of the chair in front of me. Thankfully I managed the entire thing with only one little slip up- and I remembered to sing at the same time. At each rehearsal so far it has been one or the other, singing, or playing the correct notes! It was an immense relief to find that I had not mucked the entire thing up.
Josine came round to mine for lunch- a picnic on my floor which was really fun. While she was there I managed to make her fall in love with my new CD as well- it's now on her 'to get' list.
As we were wandering to get the tram back for choir practice I saw Oscar and had a little chat with him. Oscar works at O'donnels (the Irish pub) but I've only spoken to him a few times. So as soon as I called his name I suddenly though "What if he has no idea who I am?" thankfully he did recognise me (could have been funny if he hadn't).
Choir was fantastic. So many of the little problems that we had been having with 'Entre tes mains' have either been worked out by Hérve at home, or were resolved during the practices. With Philippe bashing out a steady rhythm on the guitar is is so much easier to see where the rhythm was straying. Ireckonn we are gonna pull this one off :)

Oh and just going back to the Hillsongs theme, I discovered that on the BBC website they had an article on the hillsongs church inLondonn which was rather exciting. They weren't church bashing either which makes a nice change.