The birds et la bise

So, I've now had a full week of teaching under my belt. Much to my surprise, it's all gone relatively smoothly and so far my fears about nightmare students have been mostly unfounded- all of the classes I've taught have seemed interested and eager to learn.

That said, there's always one or two 'characters' in every class, and it doesn't seem to be any different in France. I've started most of my lessons with a simple activity stolen from another assistant at our training day where every member of the class introduces themselves with two facts and a lie about themselves, which unfortunately didn't take too long to backfire on me. Upon asking the first student in the class to introduce himself, he smirked and said;

"Hello- my name is Bastian, I am 15 years old and I really like English people."

Nice to meet you too, Bastian. That said, this quintessentially French kind of politeness is something I've been growing used to in the few weeks since I've arrived. After holding a door open for a fellow teacher the other day, she laughed out loud at me and said that no-one in France had ever done that for her before, before shouting at a bemused-looking colleague across the room;

"Il est... un gentleman!"

For the record, there is a French word for 'gentleman' (gentilhomme) but these teachers admitted that they don't really use it very often... because you don't meet French 'gentlemen' very often. Or ladies, for that matter- apparently the French just don't do 'manners' as well as the British. And while I don't particularly want this post to descend into mindless frog-bashing,* it's not particularly hard to see why.

*I do really

The word 'manners' does exist in French (manières) but that's another word they don't seem to use very much. Nope- the French much prefer their etiquette, which may initially seem similar but in reality they couldn't be further apart. 'Manners' are holding doors open so they don't slam shut in other people's faces, giving up your seat to the elderly on public transport and closing your mouth while eating so not everyone has to watch you chew your beautifully prepared lasagne up into a disgusting saliva-drenched slurry.

Etiquette, however, is something different- a set of largely inexplicable social practices that seem to have no tangible benefit apart from giving snobbish highbrow types something to sneer down their noses at perceived lesser beings for. Etiquette is sticking out your little finger while you drink your tea. Etiquette is having two different forms of the word 'you' which serve no purpose apart from mortally offending people when you get it wrong. Etiquette is la fucking bise.

What a Frenchman would probably look like drinking tea

La bise was something I didn't know much about before I came to France, which means it's proved to be a bit of a social minefield for me. In case you were wondering, la bise is the name for the French tradition of cheek-kissing when meeting people, and it's a very prominent part of the national culture here. The first thing I learnt about it once I arrived was that it doesn't actually involve cheek kissing- more a cheek-graze and a puckered-up air kiss over each shoulder, which somehow feels even more ridiculous than it sounds. The second thing I learnt about it is that even the French don't seem to understand it completely.

The main issue is that there doesn't seem to be any particular defined 'first cheek.' I've tended to go for left cheek first, as from what I've seen so far that seems to be how most people do it and so it's definitely the safer choice. But this isn't universal by any means, which leads to all sorts of awkward moments when you're trying to greet someone you haven't met before and your faces collide mid-pucker.

The general consensus amongst the English seems to be that la bise is the sort of ridiculously stupid tradition that only the French could come up with, so our group has mostly resorted to greeting each other with hugs instead. Far easier. But having talked to a number of French people about it, they've unsurprisingly all disagreed with me, defiantly insisting that it's a good way to break the ice. Which is bollocks.

It breaks the ice with new acquaintances in the same way the Titanic probably left a bit of a dent in that iceberg- it doesn't really matter how much metaphorical ice you've broken when your bise faux-pas has just sunk your budding friendship in a murky sea of awkwardness before it ever really had a chance to begin.

(PS: very sorry about the shameless title. Here's a picture of some birds too so you don't feel quite so misled)

It's aaall gravy. And custard

You know that stubborn, middle-aged and slightly technophobic man we've all had to put up with at some point in our lives? You know the type. He's usually in his mid-fifties, only a few years away from succumbing permanently to the guilty geriatric pleasure of elastic waistbands and is probably the sort of person who has responded to the realisation that his ear-hair has grown longer than his hairline by completely shaving his head in a tragically failed attempt to try and prove that he doesn't care.

We're talking about the sort of man who still owns the same Nokia 1610 that was outdated when he bought it in 1997, and who feels the need to disdainfully point out to anyone who's oh-so-clearly wasted their money on a phone released in the current millennium that 'you only need a phone to make calls!' The kind of technologically-resistant figure that's becoming rarer and rarer thanks to the ever-increasing relevance of the smartphone to the older generations, mostly due to the advent of cheap iOS apps for playing Bridge on the move as well as the odd game of Foxy Bingo. But if you think back just a few years, it shouldn't be too hard to remember just how annoying these people were.

So it is with regret that I tell you that I have become that person. Well, hopefully minus the fondness for stretchy waistbands. But after a week trying to sort out a working French mobile, I've been left a broken man.

Having spent most of the last week trying to put together the stupidly long list of requirements necessary for a new phone contract in France, I finally returned to the shop to get it sorted. In a typical display of French efficiency, it took almost an hour and a half before I left with my new SIM card, which would have been understandable if they'd needed to do anything more than photocopy my passport and nod sagely at the pile of paperwork I'd brought them. But eventually I got out, went home and tried it out.

Everything seemed to be working. I could send texts, my BBM still seemed to work and I even managed to successfully download and play a bit of Bomberman vs Zombies. Delighted, I dialled in my home number to let people know I'd finally got a French number, only to be faced with an error- All outgoing calls blocked. 

Why is nothing ever easy in France? After a bit of testing, it turned out I couldn't receive calls either, so I'd signed up to a phone contract with which I couldn't actually phone anyone. After going into the shop to explain my dilemma, the shop assistant admitted they didn't know how to fix it... so she gave me a customer service number to call.

If you've noticed the problem with that you've done a lot better than me, as I didn't realise there was an issue until I got home and tried to call the number from my still-useless phone. I have no doubt that the world's entire population of hairy-eared Nokia 1610 owners are all gathered together somewhere feeling utterly vindicated and laughing at my misfortune. And I don't blame them.

Just give me one of these and be done with it

On a completely seperate note, I had my first day working at my lycée on Monday. It all started off very nicely- the teachers were all lovely, the school food was fantastic and the students weren't quite as difficult as I'd imagined they'd be. However, it's all become a little bit scary after an otherwise innocuous conversation with one of the teachers took an unexpectedly terrifying turn. After asking when I'd arrived and what I thought of Bordeaux, he looked at me with a slightly-too-friendly smile and asked;

"By the way, can you teach Maths too?" 

In a word, no. 'Maths wasn't my best subject' would be a severe understatement. 'My Maths skills are directly comparable to those of the average anteater' might be nearer the mark. A lot of my teachers at school disliked me for one reason or another, but my A Level Maths teachers were the only ones who ever gave up getting angry at me completely, preferring to settle on pity and resignation to my inevitable failure instead.

And they're wanting me to teach these kids Maths. Thankfully, the students so far have been pretty keen to learn, and while I don't know if that'll be the same with everyone I teach, at least it's a promising start. The first lesson I participated in was focused on starting up a new school newspaper, and had the class of 14-15 year olds suggesting possible articles for the first issue. Eventually, they settled on a comparison of school canteen food in the UK and France, and had told me all about the sort of wonderful French foods their school offered.

After that, we had to make a list of typically English foods found on school menus across the UK... which proved much more difficult. After ten minutes, the extent of our list of exclusively British school foods had stretched to this;

Gravy
Sausage Rolls
Bacon
Custard

I realise that English food is a bit of a joke in France, but the looks of utter bafflement on the faces of the whole class suggested that they'd expected me to put up a bit more of a fight to defend my country's gastronomic honour.  We eventually expanded it to British foods in general, which meant we could add in 'Roast Dinner + Stuffing,' but it was hardly enough to level the score. Oh well- I may have lost the battle, but I've got seven months left to win the cross-channel war. Because we all know how great the French are at winning wars.

You can go hard and (only then) can you go home

I've been in Bordeaux for about a week now. I've met some fantastic people, seen some incredible things and drunk so much cheap vin rouge that if you cut me I'd probably bleed a zesty Cabernet Sauvignon. And considering where I'm staying in at the moment, I'll probably find out sooner rather than later if I do actually bleed wine... when I inevitably get stabbed.

I've touched on this before, but it's not a nice area. When I've told people that I'm living in Lormont, their reactions have ranged from mild distaste to wide-eyed looks of genuine fear. It's very near the school I'll be working at, but the tram network in Bordeaux does a very good job of making a massive city seem much smaller than it really is so living right next to your workplace is nice but largely insignificant. 

The room I'm staying in isn't brilliant either. In what must be one of the most baffling interior design decisions in living memory, they've decided to build a wardrobe into the bathroom wall, right next to the (open-plan) shower. Given that the wardrobe door doesn't close properly, any clothes in there end up completely soaked in a matter of seconds. I've also been forced into a temporary diet of Nutella sandwiches and Chupa Chups by the useless kitchen facilities here (no fridge!?) so finding a nicer place to live is definitely my top priority for the next couple of weeks. 

But while I may have been struggling with food, I've adapted pretty well to the Bordeaux-style liquid diet. As every British student knows all too well, student alcoholism is an exacting science; one that demands the careful measuring of the alcohol content of potential drinks against the financial battering a heavy night will leave on a flimsy student budget. For wine, I've personally adapted a system where you divide the alcohol content percentage by the value of the bottle in Pounds Sterling, which gives you an easy-to-understand indicator of inebriation value for money. 

Back in the UK, my best find with this system was a £2.99 bottle of Australian red, which at 14% gave me an APS (Alcohol/Pounds Sterling) rating of 4.68. So I'm sure you can imagine my shock when the first shop I walked into in Bordeaux was offering local wines at around 2 or 3 euros per bottle, with one particularly suave-looking bottle at 13% selling for €1.34. At current exchange rates, that's an APS rating of 12.14. MIND BLOWN. 

But unfortunately, there are occasional downsides to living in such an impressively wine-centric environment. A couple of days ago, a few of us decided to grab a few cheap bottles and have a cheeky apero (which is basically a less twattish word for 'prelash') in another assistant's apartment. However, as soon as we arrived, we realised we had all been thwarted by the same common enemy- the cork.

As someone who's never spent more than about £5 on a bottle of wine, it's quite easy to forget that corks even exist. If I'm being completely honest, I don't actually even know how to use a corkscrew. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one in this situation- we had all completely forgotten to bring corkscrews along, meaning we had to go on a late-night hunt around the local corner shops looking for something to open our wine with. Predictably, as soon as we got more than a couple of minutes from the apartment it started tipping it down, so we had to run off and hide underneath the nearest tourist monument for a bit of shelter. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite heavy enough to wash away our corks in the flood, so despite our well-laid plans the bizarre sight of a large group of tourists huddled from the rain under l'Arche de Victoire staring bemusedly at our well-sealed bottles must have amused many a local resident.

Thankfully, memorial arches make great rain-blocks

Thankfully we managed to eventually open them with the help of a sympathetic shopkeeper and his corkscrew, so the crisis was averted and we all went on to have a great time in a nearby salsa bar. Unfortunately, my only other night out over here didn't end up quite so well.

As I've already mentioned, Bordeaux's a pretty big place. But late at night, when the trams have stopped running completely,  it's like a gigantic urban desert. Or at least it would be, if deserts were filled with drunk-drivers who all drive on the wrong side of the road... if you're lucky. From what I've seen so far, late at night they seem to quite like driving along tramways and pavements too. 

ANYWAY. Having been used to clubbing in Exeter which is comparatively a bit of a country backwater, I got to 3:30am and decided to call it a night. Naturally, by that point all the trams had stopped for the night, leaving me stranded, drunk and several miles away from home. After about two hours stumbling the wrong way down a French motorway, I finally got home at about 5:00 only to check my phone and see a text telling me that if I'd stayed out for another hour or so the trams would have started again and I could have got home in less than ten minutes.

So, a couple of lessons learnt this week: 

1) When you decide to go in France, either go out properly... or don't go out at all. 

2) Even the British can learn something from the French about student drinking. Who knew? 

I'M IN FRANCE

Having talked to a lot of people about their years abroad before I left for France, the one thing I'd been told more than anything else was that I'd learn loads of new things while I was over here. I've only been here a couple of days so far, but I've already managed to pick up one useful nugget of wisdom; if you're planning on crossing the channel on a budget, invest in some armbands and swim. It'll be far less painful than flying by Easyjet.

I hadn't flown in almost three years before Thursday, but I remember flying being an awful lot easier than Easyjet made it. Having spent hours on end rearranging my stuff between my two suitcases to leave them both a matter of milligrams below the weight limit, I went to check in my bags only for the receptionist to smile sweetly and ask;

Do you have any objects with rechargeable batteries in these bags?

I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in saying that I haven't bought any portable electronics without rechargeable batteries since about 1999. And even then, that was a Game Boy Color with an optional Charger Pak. Apparently rechargeable batteries pose a serious combustion risk at high altitude, which is clearly bollocks as if it were at all true I'd have crashed and burned from 40'000 feet long ago with all the other overexcited eight-year-olds on the same plane to Hong Kong with their brand new copies of Pokemon Red. 

Regardless, I had things with rechargeable batteries that needed transferring to my hand luggage. This wouldn't have been a problem if this hadn't included an old spare phone I'd packed and put in a box right at the bottom of my bag, which I'd since sealed shut with several metric fucktons of duct tape. Thankfully it wasn't too busy at the airport so I didn't cause too much of a pile-up, but there was one old lady behind me who audibly tutted while I was rummaging through my stuff. I would have been angry, but I'm sure I'll have the last laugh when Easyjet next clamp down on sharp objects and ban travelling with dentures.

That wasn't all the weird stuff, either. Even ignoring the loud confrontation at the airport car park which sounded decidedly like the fallout from an extra-marital affair, or the couple behind us on the plane who spent pretty much the entire two-hour journey latched onto one other's faces with occasional slurping noises for good measure. Nope, perhaps the stupidest thing about Easyjet was their onboard smoking policy. I understand and appreciate the blanket smoking ban, but if you're going to do that... why would you still build ashtrays into your toilet doors?

To top it all off, my Blackberry overheated and stopped working just before we got on the plane. This would have been annoying as it was, but given that I needed a phone to arrange my lift from the airport to the other side of Bordeaux, it had threatened to leave me completely stranded too. Having invested in a brand new Blackberry less than a week ago to replace my useless old one specifically to avoid this sort of situation, it was exasperating to say the least. I realise they aren't the most reliable phones in the world, but I don't think expecting it to still work two days after buying it is that unreasonable.

Eventually I managed to coax enough life out of it to send a quick text, so I'm not still stuck at the airport looking for someone else susceptible to Branston Pickle bribes to get a lift from. But anyway, all of that is completely irrelevant now, because I'm here and it's incredible. Even though I'm not living in the nicest part of town, it's only a ten-minute trip by tram to get to the centre of what is undoubtedly the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

Le Grand Theatre, as understated as the rest of the city

Since I've been here, I've actually been relatively productive. I've set up a bank account, filled in enough paperwork to make myself pretty much solely responsible for global deforestation and almost sorted out a phone contract. I'll be able to finally get a French phone number as soon as my bank card arrives, but until then I was pretty proud of my French blagging skills in choosing a new deal. In my search for a new contract, there were minimal communication difficulties despite me not having any idea how to translate 'rolling contract' or 'sim-only package' and briefly forgetting that the French word for telephone is 'téléphone.'

Speaking of phones, the first thing my mentor did upon arriving at the airport was to apologise for not calling me and telling me when he'd be there to pick me up. Apparently, he'd just got a new phone and his had completely broken too. I opened my mouth to comment on this coincidence before noticing the phone sat on his lap- which just so happened to be exactly the same model as mine. That's not a coincidence: that's an inevitable consequence of a universal truth.

Because even with all the things about France I've learnt since I've been here, the most important lesson I've learnt since I've arrived is something that's a constant the world over. And that's the fact that whatever you're doing, wherever you are... your Blackberry will never work properly. And at the moment, at the beginning of a year in a new country when everything else is scary and new, having something that works (or doesn't) just like it does at home is actually kind of weirdly comforting. So RIM, for making your phones so consistently, impressively, reliably, loveably shite... I thank you. From the very bottom of my little 'rosbif' heart.

Branston Pickle plane bombs

I'm leaving for France tomorrow. Holy shit.

I'm just about ready to go. My alarm's set for 02:00 tomorrow morning (oh joy) to catch an early plane from Luton, which is a horrible thought. I can't remember the last time I had to get out of bed and go somewhere at 2AM. Unless you count waking up drunk in hospital, and to be honest I can't really remember much about that either.

My plane leaves at about 6AM from Luton, and should hopefully get into Bordeaux at about 09:30 local time. Once I get there I'm meant to be meeting up with a delightful Frenchman called Thierry, who'll be my senior at the school I'm working at and seems like a top guy. He's very kindly offered to pick me up from the airport and give me a lift to where I'm staying... if I bring him a jar of Branston Pickle.

Pretending for the sake of diplomacy that paying for petrol money with table condiments is completely normal behaviour, I've gone out and invested in two (TWO!) jars of pickle for my new French mentor. I've even stuck little bows on them in a definitely-not-sucking-up attempt to get off on the right foot.

Oh yes

A little bit too pleased with my efforts, I dropped them both in with the rest of my hand luggage and completely forgot about them. At least, until earlier today, when I realised my mistake- they weren't going to get through Customs. If water bottles aren't allowed, I can't see them believing me if I tell them I desperately need two jars of Branston Pickle at hand for a flight across the channel. Unable to bear the thought of my beautifully decorated pickle jars being destroyed on suspicion of containing liquid explosives, I jammed them into the tiny amount of space left in my big bag instead.

On that note, I finally finished my packing yesterday. I'd started packing a week or so ago but never got very far. Until Tuesday, I'd got so far as to find a few socks, two forks and a spoon and left them in an otherwise empty suitcase in the front room for people to trip over. But yesterday I decided to blitz it and get it over with, and in just a few minutes I had completely exhausted my paltry Easyjet weight allowance. Exasperated and wishing I'd done all this sooner, it was then that I remembered a suggestion I'd heard recently from someone who travelled a lot. His advice was this:

They don't weigh what you wear or what you've got on you. Just pull on as many shirts and jumpers as you can and Easyjet can't charge you a penny.

I'm not sure this is a great idea; taking some stuff out my bags would be a much more sensible solution. Who even needs a duvet anyway? But it's a tempting option and I may do it regardless.

So if tomorrow I'm found passed out from heatstroke under the blistering Bordeaux sun with three jumpers, five shirts and a jar of Branston Pickle in each pocket, there's no need to worry. Honest.

Oversensitive Drama students probably shouldn't read this one

I HAVE SOMEWHERE TO LIVE.

Admittedly, it's only temporary. And it's slap bang in the middle of the one part of Bordeaux I've been told to steer well clear of. But it's relatively near where I'll be working and staying there shouldn't be too financially demanding on my limited budget either. The key word there being 'shouldn't.' 

Unfortunately, it hasn't quite worked out that way, as all the main French banks only give accounts to people who have places to live. Which is all well and good until you realise that you're probably going to need a bank account with quite a lot of Euros in it to pay for somewhere to live in the first place. It's the perfect trap for us stubborn, non-conforming Brits and our awkward individual currency. To be fair, it's probably still a decent trade-off for not having to face total financial meltdown alongside most of the Eurozone, but I'm going to complain regardless. 

As I wasn't particularly keen on the idea of carrying a month's rent in cash around on French public transport, I started looking into other options that were less likely to get me mugged and pushed under a suburban tram. A few minutes of internet research later, I found what seemed to be the perfect solution- a range of bank accounts from Barclays and HSBC which allowed me to access my money in three different currencies with minimal charges.

Feeling particularly smug, I started to fill in an application form for an account with HSBC, problem apparently solved. It was only several minutes later that I noticed this bombshell in the small print:

'If you have £25,000, or currency equivalent, you're eligible to bank and save with us.'

It probably won't surprise you to learn that like most students, I don't have £25,000. Or any currency equivalent, for that matter. I wouldn't know what £25,000 looked like if it wasn't for all the Friday evenings I've wasted in front of The Million Pound Drop. A quick look at the Barclay's website revealed similarly stupid restrictions and I was right back where I started. So, yeah. Fuck you, Bob Diamond. 

Thankfully, it's all sorted now. I've got a nice Euro Traveller currency card which would be perfect if it didn't immediately single you out as a 'rosbif' every time you use it. But I can live with that- it's the other niggly things that are winding me up. 

One recent example for you- the French government have demanded that all British Council workers supply translated birth certificates. This wouldn't be a problem, but they've also demanded that it be translated and certified by high-ranking local officials. Having sent mine off for translation, I've been told that I'm going to be charged £108 exactly for the privilege.

At first, this seems excessive. But when you realise that most of a birth certificate doesn't need to be translated in the first place, it's hard not to feel robbed. They're made up of names, addresses and dates... none of which need changing at all. Indignant, I counted the words on my certificate that needed any sort of translation, and came to a grand total of... two. 'Pharmacist' and 'Programmer.' That comes to £54 a word. If students were paid at that rate for all their assessed university work, every single Arts and Humanities student would come out with enough cash to set up about a dozen of those stupid HSBC accounts and still have more than £1,000,000 left to spend on Vodkat and Pot Noodles and all the other things us students waste our money on.

Unless you study Drama, in which case your degree is still pretty much useless. Hard luck.

T - 14 days

Fourteen days. Two weeks left in England before I head across the channel for eight months. Alone.

Not with my Franglais-fluent family, or with ill-at-ease science teachers on the school exchange trip whose understanding of French culture was limited to croissants, baguettes and anything else with a French-sounding name on the Sainsbury's bakery shelves. It'll just be me and Bordeaux. And I'm scared shitless.

Not least because, to be honest, I'm not really in a position to be poking fun at anyone else's language skills right now. After a summer holiday spent occasionally volunteering but mostly sat in front of endless repeats of Total Wipeout, my ability to speak French has deteriorated to the point where I'm now mostly just speaking in English but slightly louder, with the odd 'oui' thrown in and a thick French accent so bad that it's probably slightly racist.

I'm also lacking a translated birth certificate and a medical note from my GP, meaning I'm still unable to be paid and unable to join any sports clubs in the whole of France. It's a little humiliating not being allowed to do sport on medical grounds (even boules, which apparently counts) but that's the situation I'm in until my GP learns enough French to write out a medical certificate for me. Throw in some worryingly high expectations set by the Oxford-educated guy who last did the teaching job I'll be starting in three weeks' time and the reasons behind my pre-departure anxieties might seem a bit clearer.

But all my other worries paled into insignificance when I realised last week that I had nowhere to live.

Admittedly, I probably should have tried to sort this out sooner. With a slightly warped sense of priorities, student habits kicked in and I decided that it was more important to work out whether Bordeaux was far enough towards the south of France to pass my midday naps off as 'siestas' or not. After extensive research, I've discovered a lot of interesting stuff about brain-wave patterns while sleeping and how much a daily siesta increases the risk of contracting type-2 Diabetes (26%, if you're interested) but I still haven't worked out if daytime naps are socially acceptable down there or not.

Regardless, it took me until quite late last week to start actively looking for accommodation, which proved much harder than expected. Searching for sensible student lodgings meant filtering through the amusingly high number of scary-looking French men in their fifties posting adverts online looking to share their single-bedroom apartments with women between the ages of 18 and 25. Not quite fitting these criteria, I'd just about resigned myself to homelessness before noticing a missed call from a French number on my phone.

I'd only given my mobile number to one place in France- a small hostel for young workers right next to where I'd be working, which had told me last week that they would be fully booked for months. Without thinking, I picked up the phone and called them straight back, panicking straight away when a man with a very thick French accent picked up on the other end.

I'd known that my French was a little rusty, but I hadn't realised it had got to the point that my instinctive reaction to someone speaking quickly to me in French would be 'Hola.'

Lots of work to do... but there's only so much I can do here. Flights booked. Roll on the 20th.