Where there's smoke there's fire (or a Frenchman)

C'est la rentrée. After a week or so in cold, windy England, I'm back in (cold, windy) Bordeaux, I'm back to work and I'm back with a new-found sense of purpose. I've been uncharacteristically proactive since I've got back- I've sent off job applications, finally started organising my university work and sorted a few things out for next year back in the UK.

It's translated to my language learning too- I've finally got started on a Spanish conversation exchange and I've been picking up a lot more casual French as well. My new favourite French phrase would have to be 'pédé comme un foc,' which translates roughly as 'gay as a sail.' Apparently, the origin of this has nothing to do with sailors being camp- in fact, it's because when a sail on a boat is catching the wind, it's... 'taking it from behind.' You stay classy, France.

Despite that, it's still been a bit strange readjusting to French life after a week back home. It's always difficult going back to work, and getting back into the swing of speaking French all the time took a day or two, but the biggest change was something that wasn't immediately obvious. Just a couple of days in France after a week in the crisp, clean English spring air and I only had one question on my mind... why the hell do the French smoke so much?

It's not an insignificant difference for non-smokers like me. Last year, after returning to England for a couple of weeks over Christmas I ended up going to the doctor to get a persistent cough looked at that hadn't disappeared in nearly three months. After doing a quick test which showed I was slightly short of breath as well as having the permanently sore throat I'd gone to complain about, they asked a few questions to try and work out what had caused it... to no avail. That is, until I mentioned at the end of my appointment that my home address had temporarily changed to France.

Just in case you've never seen one before

"Ah. That'd be why."

I've since been given an inhaler to use for relief from French smoke irritation, which I've admittedly completely ignored as I've mostly got used to it by now. It is still, however, pretty much constant wherever you go and it's difficult to understand why smoking's so much more prevalent over here than it is in the UK. I was discussing this with someone recently and they suggested that it's just irreversibly ingrained in French culture, pointing to this song as evidence.

Sympathie by Pink Martini seems to be one of the most quintessentially French songs out there- it's annoyingly catchy and really second only to Je Ne Regrette Rien in terms of sheer popularity and in how it just makes the French feel even Frencher. It's probably better known as the 'Je ne veux pas travailler' song, so it's not difficult to see why this obscenely strike-prone country has taken it so much to heart. Either way, it's deeply ingrained in the national consciousness, and the chorus goes like so:

It's admittedly far less cheerful-sounding when you translate it to English; either way, I'll be honest and admit that I don't really follow the logic regardless. I'm not entirely sure smoking will really help anyone who just wants to forget- if it's memory loss you're looking for, several million students worldwide would testify that alcohol's usually a far more reliable option.

This does seem to be pretty typical French smoking logic though; whereas in England a large proportion of smokers seem to smoke simply to keep nicotine cravings at bay, the French seem to do it whenever they've got a lighter and a free hand to hold a cigarette with. It's a pretty significant psychological difference between our cultures- while the French kill time by rotting away their lungs with nicotine and smoked tar, the English rot away their brains throwing Angry Birds at cartoon pigs. Everybody loses there, really.

The smoke hasn't been the only big change between living here and being back home though- for me, being back in France means living with small children again. They're not always here, but at the weekends there's usually two toddlers and a two-month-old baby in and around the house. This could easily have gone spectacularly badly- I've always been blessed with an unusual talent for babies scream and cry with nothing more than an attempt at a friendly smile. My parents both told me I was mad for deciding to live with kids, presumably after their own traumatic experiences looking after young children (Mum and Dad, I know it's over two decades late but I'm sorry for everything) yet it's actually been a lot of fun.

Probably the best thing about kids is the unflinching, pull-no-punches honesty that becomes socially unacceptable at about the same age that using a potty does. Even in France, people are generally far too polite to give a completely honest opinion on anything if there's any chance it might offend you. Children, however, don't hold back at all, which was something I learnt pretty much as soon as I moved in here after one of the resident three-year-olds told me that I spoke funny, she couldn't understand anything I was saying and that as a result, I was just really boring. In a way, the honesty was kind of refreshing... but at the same time it was a brutally frank reminder of just how much I still needed to learn. But yesterday, everything changed.

Her and her mum were about to head out the house and go somewhere, when I heard a knock on my bedroom door. I opened it and at first I couldn't see anyone, but after a second or two I heard a quiet, timid voice and looked down to see her standing outside my room looking very sheepish about something.

"Je voulais dire au revoir..."

We said goodbye and had a short conversation, with her understanding almost everything I said and asking me a few quick questions about my day before breaking out in a big smile, saying "au revoir, Paul!" one last time and finally running out after her mum. I've met a lot of people and seen a lot of things while I've been here, but nothing has even come close to being as heartwarming as that breakthrough from near-incomprehensibility to pure, honest affection. Despite the crying, the noise and all the chaos... it's a happy kind of chaos. And maybe, just maybe... kids aren't actually too bad after all.

So I'm running a marathon...!

No, seriously.

In what could easily be described as either an uncharacteristic stroke of sporting ambition or a far more characteristic stroke of unbelievable stupidity, I've just signed up to run the Médoc marathon in a few months' time. Alongside my good friends Bridget and Carlos, I'll be spending the summer preparing for something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember- a long, painful 26-mile slog for charity, pride, and boasting rights at dinner parties.

It's not for a few months yet so I'll probably start bugging you all for money slightly nearer the time, by which point I'll hopefully be a bit more prepared for this whole thing. Right now, a 26-mile run already seems impossible enough for someone as worryingly unfit as me, so I was pretty horrified when I saw that the Marathon du Médoc actually prides itself on being 'the longest marathon in the world.' After some slightly panicked research, it thankfully turned out that they haven't just thrown a couple of extra miles on the end for good measure- 'le plus long du monde' is actually best translated here as 'the world's slowest,' with runners encouraged to focus on soaking up the atmosphere rather than setting the fastest time.

There's orchestras on pretty much every single street corner, with ice-cream, cheese and even foods like steak and oysters offered to runners en-route. What's more, there's wine-tasting stalls dotted every couple of miles along the course, making it possibly the most quintessentially French sporting experience imaginable. It'd be easy to make some sort of joke here about the French not even being able to stop drinking and sober up for a marathon, but I'd thought that'd be unnecessarily stereotypical and offensive.

Oh so classy

Not so, apparently. Even the event's official homepage features a cartoon runner drunkenly stumbling along the course with a bottle in hand, so the oddly-enticing idea of completing a tipsy marathon remains a possibility. Fancy dress is compulsory too, which seems to be a cunning trick to try and distract participants from the terrifying reality of running 42 kilometres with a stomach full of red wine and steak. Right now, it's not working.

Not that I've got anything against fancy dress. Very much the opposite, in fact- having recently celebrated a friend's birthday by handing out home-made eggy bread in the city centre while dressed up with a suit, shades and cigar as one of four members of the 'French Toast Mafia,' I'm actually pretty excited about the whole costume thing. That said, Bordeaux's not a huge city, and the worryingly large number of my students who saw our mini-Mafia patrolling the city on Saturday afternoon has already resulted in an unfortunate number of classroom witticisms at my expense.

Not that I'll have to worry about that for too much longer. My contract finishes in April, leaving me with less than six weeks of teaching left and I've got no doubt that come the beginning of May my life will be far more laid-back than it is right now. The various stresses of being a teacher in France were exemplified perfectly this week with a event I'd never been told or warned about- 'Le Père Cent.'

'Le Père Cent' is the name for the day one hundred days before the beginning of the Baccalaureate- it signifies the beginning of study leave for Terminale (final year) students across the country. For reasons unknown, students nationwide celebrate it every year by running out in the streets and throwing flour and eggs at random passers-by, making it a pretty hazardous day to be outside even if you're not working at a school. Naturally, being a teacher makes you a prize target for vengeful teenagers, meaning that many lessons are cancelled and some schools are even closed completely as teachers across the country cower under their beds at home.

But despite that and all the other various difficulties life as a teacher has entailed... I've loved it. Whatever I end up doing career-wise in the future, I can't ever imagine working anywhere more vibrant, dynamic or fascinating than the school I've spent the last six months at. Admittedly teaching teenagers is a bit of a challenge, but I feel I've learnt more from my time here than I have working anywhere else and I'll be absolutely gutted to leave. Weirdly, more than anything I'll miss the cheeky classes- the ones that always manage to learn something but seem to have fun at the same time. Probably the most memorable example of one such class came up just last week, when I was playing a game where each student took it in turns to add a single word to a story on the whiteboard. I'm sure you'll agree the result was a work of narrative genius.

One day I'll learn to stop playing these silly games

Regardless, assuming I don't end up becoming part of some extraterrestrial banquet over the next few weeks, my contract is about to come to an end and my official 'year abroad' will be over. Most language assistants I've met here will be heading home as the holidays approach; visas expire, summer jobs begin and lives simply move on.

But me? Not yet.

Sure, running a marathon in September is going to be a huge challenge, but now I'm staying until then it's far from the only one I'm going to have to face. As most of the incredible, English-speaking friends I've made here all start to leave, I'll finally have to face up to the one thing I really came to France for; total French language immersion. And while that's still an absolutely terrifying prospect, it's an opportunity- and it's an opportunity I'm now committed to tackling head-on.

So even if my official year abroad finishes in a few weeks... I'm not going anywhere. I'll head back to England for a few weeks, sure, but I've got things to do here before I go home. Find a job. Run a marathon. Learn some French, goddammit.

Summer in the south of France? Oh, go on then.

Confessions of a salad-o-phobe

My brain hurts.

In a good way though. In the same way you feel sore but great after going running for the first time in ages, or the satisfying sting I'd imagine you'd have in your knuckles after punching Piers Morgan in the face. Living with seven French speakers for the last couple of weeks has been pretty intense, but I feel I'm already making some significant progress language-wise. I'm understanding far more than I was before and my vocabulary's expanded a lot too, but perhaps the most noticeable change is as worrying as it is encouraging... I've started swearing in French.

Yep, my usual repertoire of 'fucks,' 'shits' and 'twatfaced bastards' has been inadvertently replaced with a more continental mix of 'putain,' 'bordel,' and the delightful 'va te faire foutre.'* Even better, the French seem to like mixing up their swear-words just as much as us Brits do- 'putain de bordel de merde' seems to crop up surprisingly frequently, which I'm sure will delight all the feminists wondering why the French need about six different words for 'bitch.' Swearing aside though, I've learnt plenty of other things about French social culture recently too- notably, the French view on lager.

*Translated as 'slut,' 'whorehouse' and 'go fuck yourself,' if anyone was wondering

In England, lager-drinkers tend to have a pretty awful reputation as a whole. Fosters and Carlsberg are pretty much canned piss, anyone who drinks Stella Artois definitely beats their wife and Grolsch has a stupid name that sounds like the noise a German tramp might make when he projectile-vomits over your shoes. As far as acceptable lagers go you've got maybe two or three that are relatively safe bets, and one of the safer ones to order would probably be a Kronenbourg.

Not so in France. Kronembourg is the one lager that seems to be available on tap pretty much everywhere, but ordering one in male French company seems to be a pretty serious social faux-pas. I went out recently with a group of French guys, and whilst everyone else in the group decided to order obscure-looking beers that in terms of alcohol percentage were probably nearer wine, I saw the reassuringly red Kronenbourg tap and asked for a pint of that. From the disgusted looks on the faces of everyone around me, you'd have thought I'd asked for a dead orphan steak and a Smirnoff Ice.

Anyway, I had my birthday a few days later, which proved to be a lot more fun. I'd been expecting a quiet night, but I got jumped in a pub by a group of amazing, fantastic, wonderful friends who sang me Happy Birthday before whisking me off for a surprise evening bowling. And it was incredible. In a night full of highlights, my personal favourite was probably one particularly wayward bowl from a certain Miss Chula which somehow ended up missing the entire lane and scoring a surprise gutterball for the next team along.

SURPRISE GUTTERBALL

Despite the fact that I was still feeling a little sore from the night before and even though I lost (badly), I had an incredible evening celebrating finally becoming a proper adult in the best way possible... by indulging my inner eight-year-old. Twenty-one, and as mature as ever. Unfortunately, a few days later something happened that made me worry about something I've never really worried about before... growing up.

Several of my housemates had exams or lots of work to do for Monday, and as someone whose workload could very fairly be described as 'minimal' it fell to me to prepare a meal for them on Sunday evening. Unfortunately, being a Sunday all the shops were shut apart from a couple of local épiceries, and the gas for our oven had run out to boot, making my options painfully limited. A quick look in the fridge revealed my options for improvisation were pretty minimal too- there's only so much you can do with a bottle of Orangina, a jar of strawberry jam and some mayonnaise.

In a panic, I ran out to the nearby épicerie and looked around, unsurprisingly finding nothing but stacks upon stacks of vegetables. This was far from ideal- I've always prided myself on proudly following in my Grandfather's footsteps by avoiding eating anything green as it's either a) mouldy or b) rabbit food. But here I was, a few days after turning 21, faced with a painful dilemma... betray my youthful anti-greenery principles, or go hungry? With a head full of shame and a heavy heart, I picked up a mishmash of the least brown-looking vegetables I could find, got back and chucked them all in a bowl with some jam and mayo and dolloped a ladleful of it on everyone's plates.

I'm not going to pretend anyone was blown away- but there were nods of approval all round, with one housemate offering up the backhanded compliment 'pas mal... pour un anglais!' Given that I share a house with a chef in a country which is arguably the food capital of the world, I'm probably never going to blow them away either, but as a self-confessed culinary retard I'm perfectly happy with 'not bad.' And you know what? Even though it goes against every single one of my principles... I liked my jam salad. And I'm going to make it again.

Grandpa... I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

The whisky-fuelled misadventures of Genjamin Bell

I'm finally back in France after the Christmas holidays, and it's definitely been an interesting couple of weeks. We had a huge family gathering, an amazing Christmas together and best of all, everything was in a language I actually understood for once. But probably the most blog-worthy event of my two weeks in England was our New Year celebrations, which I spent looking after a friend who may have inadvertently drunk a little bit too much. For the purposes of maintaining his anonymity and dignity, in this blog I'll be calling him... 'Genjamin.' Or 'Genjamin Bell,' to be polite and give him his full name. Anyway, quite early on in the evening Genjamin decided for some reason that downing a full glass of neat whisky was a good idea.

Needless to say, it wasn't. A few minutes later, we found ourselves explaining to an ambulance crew in great detail how he'd fallen down the stairs, burnt his mouth trying to smoke the lit end of a cigarette and then collapsed in a particularly pungent heap. Indeed, when we finally arrived at the hospital one doctor refused to treat him until someone had found some Febreze because "you could get drunk just sniffing that." Regardless, I ended up spending four hours on New Year's Eve by a hospital bedside, bringing in 2013 itself with a hug from a sympathetic doctor and a bite-size Mars from the bottom of a box of Celebrations.

Oh, Genjamin

Anyway, having spent the first few hours of the new year watching paralytic, vomit-drenched 15-year-olds being stretchered into A&E back in the UK, I've finally returned back across the channel to a country that, unlike England, definitely doesn't have any sort of under-age drinking culture whatsoever. Thank God for that. I've also managed to move into my new place nearer the city centre without too much trouble- apart from almost murdering the neighbours' cat after accidentally locking it in our house over the holidays with no food or water, it's gone pretty much without a hitch. I've got an actual house to live in, an actual fridge to keep my food in, some really cool housemates and the neighbours' cat is still alive and well... if maybe a little wary of coming anywhere near our house ever again. Things are on the UP.

Not only that, but after only a few days, living with French people 24/7 has already shown me a completely different side to France. I've spent the last few months making cursory visits to tourist hotspots, ordered the same old overpriced drinks in touristy pubs and spent far too much time speaking English, just like the lazy tourist I'd always tried so hard not to be. I've had an amazing time over the last few months, but in terms of what I've achieved and learnt it's all been worryingly superficial. Much like reading the script for an adult video, you get the idea- but not the point.

But over the last three or four days I think I've learnt as much French as I did in the entirety of last term (ie not as much as I could have) and I've started to learn a bit more about some of the little quirks of French life beyond chain-smoking and drinking wine with every meal. I've been watching French TV, read French newspapers, listened to French music and (more predictably) gone out to socialise in actual French bars. Perhaps the biggest revelation has been the demi-pêche, a neat little combination of lager and sirop de pêche which somehow achieves the impossible and makes even Kronenbourg taste genuinely amazing. I've still yet to try and see whether or not it makes Fosters drinkable, but I'm not optimistic- even miracles only go so far.

But regardless, a couple of days of French immersion and it's become painfully clear that what I've learnt over the last few months has barely scratched the surface of what I could (and should) have been doing all along- stop living like an Englishman and embrace the local culture for once. In the same way that doing some weed and fucking a hooker doesn't mean you've 'done' Amsterdam, excessive Camembert and passive smoking doesn't mean I've learnt anything significant about life in France either. With the new year comes the perfect opportunity for fresh starts, so as terrifying as it sounds my resolution is simple.

When in France...
...do as the French do.

Bordeaux, fucking bring it.

ALL IS DARKNESS

Don't worry- I'm not going all emo on you. Honest.

I am, however, in the dark. Literally. As I have been for most of the last week. The bulb in my room died on me a few days ago, and as I didn't have the necessary gear to unscrew the cover on the light by myself I needed some help to replace it. Unfortunately, my room is such a tip I can't possibly let anyone who works here see it... so I've just sat here in the dark. For six days and counting.

8 PM and living by laptop light

I do realise that tidying my room would be the more logical option. Unfortunately, as most of my lessons were cancelled last week I didn't have any work to put off with mindless procrastination, so cleaning was never really going to happen. Thankfully, none of this even matters in the slightest, because in less than a week I'm FINALLY MOVING OUT. Having spent the last three months living in the sort of grim, tiny room that probably only needed a metal-barred window to perfectly recreate life in Alcatraz, moving out feels like Christmas come early.

On that note, Christmas itself feels like it's come early as well- it seems to have crept up on me faster this year than ever before. I now have less than a week left to buy presents for everyone, which wouldn't be such a problem if buying gifts for everybody wasn't always such hell to go through; on a comprehensive list of 'The Worst Things Ever,' Christmas shopping would probably rank somewhere in-between ethnic cleansing and Nicki Minaj. And of course, as with everything else in the world, living in France makes it all a million times more difficult.

I headed out into the city centre a few days ago on a search for some present-buying inspiration, where just after entering a small shop I was grabbed by the arm, had my rucksack taken off me and promptly shoved behind the till. In a wonderfully typical display of French manners they went on to tell me I could have it back when I eventually decided to leave or buy something. In an equally typical display of British petty passive-aggression I walked out in a huff and bought what I'd been looking for at another shop nearby even though it cost almost €10 more. That'll show 'em. Bastards.

I don't know if I'm just a particularly shifty-looking shopper but that wasn't the first time it's happened either. A couple of weeks ago a man stopped me at the entrance to the Virgin Megastore and asked if he could seal all the zips on my rucksack shut with cable ties before I started looking around, only to eventually decide against it because I couldn't stop laughing at him.

Shopping scrooge-isms aside though, it's been an amazing build-up to Christmas. The lights they've put up around Bordeaux are beautiful, there's a specially-built festive ice rink right in the middle of the city and I've even been invited out to a meal with the other teachers at the school, who in a stroke of utter genius have decided that the most appropriate food to get for a sophisticated Christmas meal out in France is... fish and chips.

And in a weird way, it's that thought of fish and chips that has got me more excited for Christmas than anything else. Because Christmas doesn't just mean mince pies and snow and fat beardy men in red hats anymore... Christmas means home. Christmas means England, and all the tiny little things I'd always taken for granted until now. Roast dinners. Cheap beer. Fresh milk. Cadbury's chocolate. Proper gravy. Free healthcare. Walker's crisps. Big red postboxes. Bacon sandwiches. The McDonalds PoundSaver menu. Cars that actually stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings. Daytime repeats of Come Dine With Me and QI and Top Gear and...

In fact, the only thing about England I wasn't missing at the moment was the ridiculously dull race each year for Christmas number one, an apparently once-proud tradition bastardised by a long line of forgettable X Factor nobodies and Rage Against-fuelled anti-Cowell campaigns. But the one year I'm out of the country, this guy's apparently in with an outside chance of getting it in what would undoubtedly be the best Christmas number one since Bob the Builder. Oh, I've missed you, England.

I'm pretty sure this is where I should probably say something about how I miss all my family and friends back home most of all... but if I said that my brother would call me a massive bender and my friends would all laugh at me. So I won't say it.

But I'm thinking it.

Thanksgiving, tennis and teacher trauma

Unsurprisingly, my last few months in Bordeaux have been packed with new cultural experiences. I'm pretty sure that I hadn't ever been hit in the face with a wayward baguette in the rush-hour tramway squeeze until a few weeks ago, for instance. However, some of the more interesting cultural experiences of my time in France haven't actually had anything to do with French culture at all. I've restarted practicing my long-dormant Spanish and learnt lots of new Russian insults, with Hoy morzhovy (which translates roughly to Walrus dick) being my new favourite insult of all time. And of course... there was Thanksgiving.

I've never celebrated Thanksgiving before, but given the huge numbers of trans-Atlantic language assistants some sort of celebration was inevitable. Being the uncultured, untravelled European that I am, I had no idea why people actually celebrated Thanksgiving and made finding out a priority. Apparently, it's a celebration of the pilgrim forefathers being taught how to grow food and survive by the Native Americans... a favour promptly returned by way of the subsequent pilgrim-inflicted genocide. That's American gratitude for you.

Regardless, like most holidays these days it's clear that the celebrations aren't really about their long-since irrelevant historical origins any more. You can tell me all you want that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but to me Christmas means family, a fuck-off-massive turkey and stealing as many chocolate decorations from the tree as possible while no-one's looking. Thanksgiving seems to be much the same, as the pilgrim fathers are insignificant compared to the things people are genuinely grateful for; great company and mountains of food.

Yeah, forget the pilgrims- this is Thanksgiving done right

One other thing we should be thankful for that has come up recently was the impending legalisation of gay marriage in France. I'm not going to get overly political here because, to be honest, politics is fucking boring. That said, I'm pretty sure the world would be a better place if these 'pro-family' bigots who feel they have the right to arbitrarily deny the basic rights of others were denied the basic right to oxygen. Regardless, it's looking like Monsieur Hollande and his Parti socialiste will be pushing the bill through early next year, a tidbit of news I tried to share with one of my classes... with disastrous results.

It turned out that an overwhelming majority of the students at my school are not very welcoming about the idea of gay marriage- in a class of twelve or so teenagers, only one student admitted to supporting the forthcoming bill. This promptly led to the entire class mocking him with jeers of pédé and gaylord, the latter of which was actually kind of impressive given that the only other English words the whole class seemed to understand were 'Hello,' Goodbye' and 'Lunch.' While I took a moment to bemoan the fact that these students had learnt how to spew homophobic bile before learning to correctly say how old they were, the whole class erupted into utter chaos which was only cut short by me shouting 'LUNCH' at them and finally getting rid of them for the day.

After the trauma of totally losing control of a class for the first time I desperately needed to unwind, which I did by finally getting round to joining the local tennis club. Unfortunately, just like pretty much everything in France, that proved to be a massive headache to sort out too. It turns out you're not allowed to actually just go along and play tennis- you need to use an online booking system to reserve a court in advance, and each booking needs to be validated by at least two members to ensure that no dastardly non-members can play. Which is all well and good until you realise that new members probably won't know any other members and so they can't play either.

The club chairman eventually explained their work-around to this particular problem- a well-hidden ad-board on their club website designed to help new members find other people to play with. I've had a quick look at the page... and it reads an awful lot like a lonely hearts column. Almost all the messages start with 'Je cherche un partennaire' and seem to be pretty simple French-language variations on 'looking for someone for some laid-back fun one evening- nothing too serious! Text me xoxo'

All that aside, I hit another hurdle while filling in the membership forms when I was asked what my ranking was. Realising that 'not too dreadful although I still can't beat my dad' probably wouldn't cut it on official club paperwork, I shrugged and said 'uhh... moyen?' (intermediate), hoping that would suffice. Apparently it didn't, as after finishing the forms he found a guy hanging around the clubhouse for me to play against so they could try and gauge my ability. After giving me one of the manliest, bone-crushing handshakes I have ever experienced, he told me he was ranked as a 30/0- and nope, I didn't know what that meant either.

After two exhausting hours of futile running, lost-cause chasing and painful ego-bruising, I can tell you I now know what 30/0 means- 'far better than me,' apparently. As a pretty average player I've lost more than a few games in my time, but this one hurt more than most- as if I'd let my fellow racquet-wielding countrymen down in the face of our old cross-channel nemesis. So if you're reading this, Jean-Pierre, I'll admit you beat me... this time. But my dad could still take you.*

(NB: he couldn't really. Sorry Dad)

Free wine and fake Baileys

So after two weeks in the UK, I'm back in Bordeaux... and I'm suffering from a huge case of culture shock.

Not just because I've had to go back to work after two weeks off, although having to explain to a class of giggling adolescents exactly what the words 'inbreeding,' 'bestiality' and 'cougar' meant certainly bordered on the surreal. It's not just the weather either, even if the locals in their thick-knit coats and scarves seem slightly baffled by my continued reliance on short-sleeved shirts and suncream well into November. Nope, what's thrown me most since coming back is the way people socialise back here in Bordeaux- it's a completely different world.

I've been back for less than a week, and in that time I've already found myself at two of the sorts of formal wine evenings that you'll feel painfully out of place at without both a dinner jacket and a well-groomed moustache. As a scummy English tourist in possession of neither of these things, it was difficult to shake the feeling that people were judging me for actually drinking the wine on show. Given that most of the black-tie wearing Frenchmen around me were spending more time gazing thoughtfully at their glasses, only occasionally stopping to stick their nose in, take a sniff and nod approvingly, I can only assume I didn't get the memo.

That said, considering that my enduring memory of being back in England was being peer-pressured into downing a beer which my utterly hilarious friends had contaminated with vast quantities of congealed home-brand fake Baileys, the fact that I don't really fit in at classy wine-tasting evenings in le capital du vin du monde probably isn't a massive surprise. As a result, the transition back to Bordeaux life has definitely been a little jarring, a situation we tried to remedy by visiting a local tourist hotspot... L'Entrecôte.

Take everything you know about French restaurants. The long and varied menus, the complex yet perfectly-prepared dishes and that certain je ne sais quoi that comes from their beautifully stubborn French pride in their own culinary identity. All that... forget it. L'Entrecôte takes these traditions and stamps all over them like freshly-picked Merlot grapes. Having clearly realised that for many people ordering food in a restaurant comes down to 'how fast can I find a steak in this unnecessarily long list of meals,' they've decided to shorten their menu... to one item.

Which was an undeniable masterstroke, because it's now easily the most popular restaurant in the whole city. Whether it's purely down to the novelty of the one-item menu, or because their steaks are such works of culinary beauty, I don't know- I couldn't get in. When we tried to go and see for ourselves, there were people queueing to be seated all the way along the street in a line that looked well over an hour long. It's clear that their atypical business logic is working for them, which means that I'm not really in any position to point out that branding your house wine with Comic Sans isn't the most logical way to consolidate your position as Bordeaux's most exclusive eatery. But I'll point it out anyway.

Whatever works for them, I guess

Perhaps the most unusual evening of the week however came on Thursday, when I went out for a meal with the other teachers at my school. Despite the fact that all the other English teachers are young, friendly and really easy to get on with, I was still a little bit nervous beforehand. Mostly because it's always a bit unnerving trying to relax around your working superiors, but there was still a little voice in the back of my head left over from school days gone by reminding me that teachers are all terrifying and scary and that they cannot possibly have actual lives outside of the classroom.

Thankfully, I was quickly proved wrong and had a fantastic evening over sangria and tapas. The food was pretty good- we got through multiple plates of calamari and some sort of delicious olive paste, while all trying to avoid an ominous-looking plate of potato chips in the middle of the table which had been drowned in the sort of spicy sauce that would probably blow your face off the rest of your head if you dared to try it without a large glass of water to hand. The best bit though was just relaxing and sharing stories of classroom nightmares and anecdotes from abroad- my personal favourite being someone who'd had so much difficulty understanding a student from Newcastle that she genuinely believed that 'Geordie' was a different language.

The evening also shed some light on one of the mysteries that has confused me every time I've ever come to France- why they feel the need to use such stupidly small glasses all the time. I've spent the last two months shopping around for pint glasses to no avail, and in this tapas bar we were presented with the most ridiculously-shaped glasses I have ever seen. They were about four times wider than they were tall, and looked far more like petri-dishes stolen from a school science lab somewhere than something you were actually meant to drink from. I eventually asked why exactly the French felt they needed such small glasses and why they didn't even fill them up properly, to which I got the response;

"Avoir peu dans le verre plus grand- c'est vraiment la classe, non?"  
(Having a little bit in a bigger glass- that's true class, isn't it?)

Considering that he said this just as I finally dared to try one of the terrifying spicy potato chips and had to clumsily refill my stupid petri-dish four times to get enough water to stop my throat burning up into an agonising chili-scented crisp, I'd say that no. No, it really, really isn't.