Ouh Là! Tellement de pluie!

Wow, these past few days have been crazy here in Normandy! Earlier last week we were hit by a blizzard, and this week it's torrential downpour! 

I left my apartment yesterday to find this! I have a run off ditch in front of my gates for the field to the right of the photo and it had turned into a full on river! Might not seem all that significant, but it's usually empty...

When I finally went to le supermarché, after battling through torrential downpour, there was a brief gap in the rain, and I turned around to see this! Un arc-en-ciel! Made me feel a little bit better... 

 After coming back from the supermarket (I went to Cora, if you're interested) I got rid of some old bread and fed les canards... Poor things, the river was running so fast because of all the extra water.

However, today, I stayed at home and made these. Much better idea than trying to face the hurricane coming down outside my door! They aren't very french (it does use apples though...) but american, and they're called apple dumplings. I made mine with apples and plums... much tastier than they look! Perfect with a cup of tea...

La recette 

A la procahine!

Gisacum!

 

One of the great things about working as an assistant is that I get to go on lots of sorties scolaires (school outings) and I get to see loads of cool things without paying with a group of cracking students.

Last mardi, I went with a group of 6emes (11-12 years old) to the Roman ruins in Vieil Evreux.
There are ruins of a roman bath house, and a temple that is thought to have been dedicated to Apollo, as well as a town which was shaped as a hexagon with all the houses on the outside. It really was an immense compound. At the moment, the digs are still continuing, there's always more to be found!
Another thing I found out which thrilled me is that they also do re-enactments! How cool is that!

Here are some pictures of the ruins:

Want to find out more? Here's a bilingual flyer! 

And lastly, the next trip I'm scheduled to go on is to Paris with another group of students, so stay tuned!

Alors, à la prochaine fois, mes amis!

La Forêt d'Evreux

I went and visited Evreux Forest when I finished work early one vendredi. Thought it would be a good idea to go then because I needed to film a vlog for a friend about the spirituality of forests. How we were wrong! It was teaming with les joggeurs, mais voilà!

Here are some of the photos I took:

 In this picture you can just about make out the south-west of Evreux behind the trees. The whole forest is up on a massive hill, and you can tell...

 This is the entrance that I came in by, the trains from Caen and the rest of the west of Normandy cross over on their way to la gare Evreux Normandie.

And lastly, a cute video of the Jack Russel dogs playing in the forest :)
A la prochaine!

Very late Christmas post!

Ahhh! I've been super, super busy here in France! So sorry to all you guys who follow me, but this is a series of catch up posts!

First of, a very late Joyeux Noël post! And I want to talk about the awesome food we have here in france around the festive period!

La Buchette de Noël

In all the Boulangeries (a bit like the french version of Greggs...) around Christmas time, you see these cute little mousse cakes, called "little logs". They come in vanille, chocolat and a mix of the two. I personally was only able to try a bit of them as I've recently become lactose intolerant (and I live in Normandy, the cheese capital of France, la chance, eh? ) but I loved the light mousse and cake texture! My boyfriend polished off mine as well as his and he said that they went great avec une tasse de café!


Les huitres
 
Known as oysters to me and you, they're really popular around Christmas in France and are as important to them as smoked salmon in the morning for us in the UK. All my students said they didn't really like them though... me neither! They're like salty slime...

La Foie Gras

Fatty duck's liver, sounds dégoûtante, right? Well, ethically, it's not something that's gonna win any awards, but my word, it is tasty. So much nicer than it looks (really...), it tastes a bit like a Michelin Starred corned beef!

Plateau de fromages
Cheeses from Normandy are famous all over the world, and it comes as no surprise that the French like to have a cheese platter around Christmas (and after nearly every meal, in fact...). The best, I think, is Camembert, the king of the soft cheeses.
 
Before I became lactose intolerant just after Christmas, I used to eat this beautiful cheese every day. Its mild, tasty and really creamy. Way better than cheddar, honestly. Only down side is that it smells like a hiker's feet after a week walking in the Beacons... It was a price well worth paying, I can tell you that! You can buy Camembert in the big supermarkets now-a-days so there's really no excuse to not try it!


Again, sorry for the 3 month hiatus! Life has calmed down a lot now, and I've got time to update you all! :)

And lastly...

A la prochaine!

My flat

It's been a while, hasn't it! I've been very very busy getting settled in after the introductory observation period ended, I'm now a fully functioning language assistant, and have to prepare lessons and what have you!

At the moment, with my younger pupils, we've been working on colours and some simple nouns, such as flower, butterfly, moth ect. I wonder if you guys know what they are in french... I didn't know moth until I prepared that lesson...
Anddd, with the older 17-18 year olds I teach, we're going through role plays for essential vocab for living in England, as they are going to be doing some work experience over there for a couple of weeks.


Anyway, back to the post. I want to talk about my flat here, and include a mini tour. It's a 55m2 studio, with an upstairs and a downstairs, and on a gated property. Here are some photos:

This is one of my very first meals, c'était un potage simple, avec des carottes, des pommes de terre et autres legumes... c'était super bon!

This is my kitchen, and as you can see, I couldn't resist having Heinz ketchup in my larder... and in that black bag hanging up is a rather large variety of British biscuits...

Here is the living room areas, complete with tv and coffee table...

... and voilà, mon lit, et mon doudou, Cwtch...

I also have very steep stairs leading down to the front door and the bathroom.

Complete with all my shoes!

This was a painting that a relative of my landlord had done, they've also decorated much of the furniture in the flat too.

My small dining table.

And this is the view from the sofa to the rest of the flat, and of course, you can see my welsh flag by the mirror!

So this is only a short entry, but I very much appreciate those who take time to read it! If you want to see anything in particular about my life out here, leave a message.

Bonne soirée à vous tous!

My first few weeks

(First of all, sorry for the late post! I've just recently moved and internet has been a bit temperamental- but more about my new place in the next post!) 

So far, it's really been a roller coaster! I've been living with my main teacher for a while in a really great room with my own double bed, tv and internet. Her name is Geneviève and she lives with son mari, qui s'appelle Hervé. They have une fille, qui s'appelle Pauline. They live in Aviron which is the town up from Evreux, which is very much dans la campagne. There is even une ferme at the end of the road with a heap of cows! Cows are pretty common here, seeing as Normandie is the home of great, stinky cheeses, of which I've particularly become fond of Camembert...

Below is a picture of the view from my room at Geneviève's house. Opposite lives one of the english teachers from the other school that I work in, called Francine. 

Here's a picture of my room where I stayed for the past couple of weeks.

Also, something which I found very charming was that the room had un thème maritime.

Also, they have a little dog called Alto, who is very, very mignon. At the time of the photo, il était blessé, so that's why he is wearing a bandage on his leg. Poor Alto!

Alto

While I've been here, I've learnt about une rivière that runs through the city, called the Iton. 

 In the following picture, you can see down the river to the right is something that looks like a chicken coop, but it's not. Its an old bath house, of which there are countless others along the banks of the river. Citizens of the town used to use the river as a communal thing, as well as using it to get clean. At the moment, you can't really see it, but the water is really, really clear. I've seen schools of fish swimming down it like they were swimming through glass. It's quite a pretty river, the Iton.

Also, lastly, while on my travels through the town, I came across an odd sight right in front of the town hall. At first it was just a band doing strange covers of old 70s tunes, in their own special form of english, of course, which was enough to attract my attention. While listening, I noticed a rather large group of kids run in front of the stage and execute a perfectly choreographed dance routine to a song which was well before their time. It was a great experience, and had an air of a flash mob, but really, the other english assistant that I was with at the time and I were totally baffled. It was very odd and I still don't understand what actually happened or why...  Oh well, at least it looked like they were having fun!

Oh Evreux, you never cease to... surprise me. :P

Mon voyage à Évreux

So, yesterday me and my dad started off at about 10am to allow us enough time to get to Kings Cross international for our 1pm Eurostar train. After some wandering about aimlessly, we hopped on our train, and off we went!

I decided for the last half hour that I would be in the UK, I may as well finish off the rest of mon roman, ready to put away all english media away and embrace the french language when I hit french soil.

Only 2 hours and a bit later, we arrived at le Gare du Nord, one of Paris's largest and busiest stations.

From Gare du Nord, on a pris le RER, ligne E, to Haussmann - St-Lazare. It's an underground railway system that covers the Paris area, with double decker trains, which my dad absolutely enjoyed.

 On my travels j'ai trouvé un petit bistro dans le centre-ville. I haven't had the chance to check it out yet, but I will soon!

 And lastly, check out the price of those beans! I might have to take another trip back to London and bring back a suitcase full of them...