Kathryn's Visit

Kathryn came out to visit this week, it was really great to see her again! We went to a fair thing in Aulnoye on Sunday, which was really good, lots of little stalls showcasing local produce and things. We found one selling Champagne, and they let us have a taste, it was quite nice really (coming from someone who doesn't like Alchol!!) and Kathryn brought 2 bottles for her birthday. The weather wasn't brilliant, but it was mostly inside which was good! On Monday I had to work, I was in Stivenart but even though the teacher was doing English, there wasn't actually anything for me to do, in fact I spend the whole afternoon reading 'Guiding' magazine and have planned loads activities for Brownies when I go home!!! We went for Pizza in the little restaurant in Aulnoye, which was nice.

On Tuesday we went to Paris. I've been to Paris twice since I've been here, but not really done any of the 'Touristy' parts, so we went to the Eiffel Tower, saw Notre Dame, climbed the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs Elyesée. It was kinda cloudy at the beginning of the day, but by the afternoon, it had brightened up and was really nice!

Whilst I was in Paris I brought my Interail Pass for Italy, and tried to book my night Train to Rome...but (horror!!) It was fully booked!! Instead I'm getting a train to Milan and then changing on a train to Rome, fortunately the train gets there 50mins after the night train, so I can still meet up with Lauren, the other assistant coming with me. But unfortunately it gets to Milan at 5:38 am!!!! I am really not looking forward to waking up that early! And I have a hour wait in Milan too!!! Not looking forward to that part of the trip!!

Anyway on Wednesday we went to Reims. I'd brought the tickets earlier cos we had to leave at 10am, so we went on to the platform remembering to 'composter' our tickets, which I'd given to Kathryn, I thought I'd been really clever getting out the tickets beforehand, so we didn't have to rummage through our bags at the station. We had to change trains at Charleville Meziers, and when we got there, we were looking for the train when a guard came up and asked where we were going, I showed him the tickets and he looked a bit confused, it was then that I noticed I'd only gone and 'Composted' the return ticket!! Luckily the guard was very nice and changed it for me, but I did feel a bit silly!!

Reims was really nice, we looked round the Cathedral, which had beautiful stain glass windows, and then we walked to a Champagne Cellar which was really interesting, seeing how they make it and leave it to settle for at least 5 years. We had a taste at the end...I didn't really like it though!! We were really hungry so we went to find somewhere to eat, unfortunately the Champagne Cellar was outside the main town, so we walked for ages before we eventually found a Mc Donalds! We ate in there, and then walked out and round the corner and came to a square with about 5 Cafes!! We had a little wander round the town centre, and then got the train back to Aulnoye.

On Thursday Kathryn went home, but before she went, we went for a walk round Aulnoye, so she could see the Hotel de Ville and one of the schools, then we went into Lille, and wandered round there, before going to Flunch for lunch. Then it was time for Kathryn to go :( but we'd had a really good time!

SNOW!!

It snowed yesterday! It was really preaty!

I'm really excited cos Kathryn is coming on Saturday, for 5 days, and then 5 days later I'm going to Italy!!! More on that later!

Joyeuse Pâques!!

For anyone who is not Catholic, this post probably won't make much sense but anyway, after realising that there was no way I would be home for Easter this year, I thought I'd got to the Easter Vigil service here in Aulnoye. Since the Catholic Church is fundamentally the same throughout the world, I borrowed a Mass book from my church at home, so I would at least have some idea of the readings!

I have discovered that the churches here are grouped into Parishes, now were have Parishes at home, but it normally only includes one church, (maybe 2-3 in very rural areas) but here a Parish is made up of 4-5 churches, spread out over quite a large area, in the case of Aulnoye, over the surrounding towns/villages too. I found the church in Aulnoye not long after I got here, right in the town centre about 15mins walk away. Now if this was England, all the Masses would be held at that church, and there would be no problem. But here, it turns out that only the 18h00 Saturday evening Mass is held at St Martin here in Aulnoye, and the other Masses are held at other churches in the surrounding towns, which unfortunately are not easy to get to without a car.

And that was my problem with the Easter Vigil service, I had thought that since it takes place on Saturday night, that it might have been in Aulnoye, but no, it would be taking place in St Michael's Berlimont, the next town north of here, which was impossible to get to without a car. Undeterred I decided to go to the Palm Sunday Mass at the church in Aulnoye, and see whether maybe I could find someone who was going to the Easter Vigil service who would give me a lift. Luckily for me at the end of the service the Priest noticed that he didn't recognised me and so came over to find out who I was. As I explained that I was from England, he called over a couple who (apparently) the man had lived in England at some point in his life!! As soon as I explained (in french!!) my predicament for the following week, he said not to worry, he and his wife would give me a lift!! So that was great problem solved!!

So tonight I waited for them at 8pm and they came and picked me up and took me to the church in Berlimont. It's a beautiful church, quite old, but has also been refurbished recently so it looks really nice inside. All the people running round trying to get things ready defiantly reminded me of my Church at home! What surprised me thought was that there were lots of children there, not really young ones, but probably around 9-14 years, they were all sitting together at the front and they had sticks which they had decorated and lanterns which they had made out of Tin cans! We couldn't start with the fire outside like normal cos it was snowing (yes really snowing!!) so they just had a small one at the back of the Church and they lit the Easter Candle, then the children processed down the aisle with their sticks and lanterns and they lit everyone's candle as they went. The lights were all turned out so it was just lit with candles and it was really beautiful (this is my favourite part of the service anyway!)

It was a bit confusing, I tried to follow it in my English Mass book, but sometimes the words didn't really match, and so it was hard to find what they were doing. There are 7 readings in the Mass book, and most of the services I have been to have done at least 5, but here they only did 2, so that was a bit strange cos I was expecting them to do more!! It was also slightly different after the Renewal of Baptismal Promises, because in my church at home the priest goes through the church sprinkling people with the Holy Water, but here people went up to the font themselves and blessed themselves, it was nice, but it did take quite a long time, and defiantly wouldn't work with the number of people in my church at home!!

On the whole I managed to understand it, though it was strange cos even if I didn't understand every word, I still knew what they were saying and doing! It was really nice to see what other churches do because even though it was mostly the same service, there were little things that were different.

One thing that I found quite symbolic was that the name of the church was St Michael's, which is the same as my church at home! How weird is that!!

The couple that gave me a lift were really nice, and have even offered to take me out one weekend, Unfortunately I don't have that many weekends left here now, but hopefully I'll get a chance to meet up with them again before I go home.

Oh by the way the title 'Joyeuse Pâques' means 'Happy Easter' if you couldn't guess! It was quite funny cos after the service the priest came up to wish me happy Easter, and obviously wanted to say it in English (I must admit I don't quite understand why almost every French person I have met has tried speaking to me in English once they find out I'm English...I can speak french you know..you don't have to speak to me in English!!) but anyway, he didn't know what it was, so started asking all the other people round me, until I said, 'Oh Joyeuse Pâques en Anglais? C'est 'Happy Easter.' He looked a bit surprised that I had understood him (well...yeah..(see above!!)) and then said 'ah bon, 'Appy Easter'!! Ah well it was nice of him to try, though really I would have understood if he said it in French!!!

So Joyeuse Pâques everyone...try not to eat tooo much chocolate!!!

Blackout! Update

****Update*****

The Plumber came yesterday and put in a whole new hot water heater!! So now finally I have both hot water and Electricity!! Yey!!!


Well as I predicted, the electricity went off again last night, I had to rush around trying to wash and dry my hair before 11!! To make matters worse there was hardly any hot water, even with the hot tap on full it was only lukewarm for 10 mins!!

So I went down and told the caretaker about the problems with the electricity, apparently it's happend to a few other people, and is caused by the Hot water tank! I'm not quite sure how that explains why it turned off at a certain time and worked again in the morning, but he's turned of the hot water tank, so I now should have electricity, but no hot water!! He said that he was going to tell the people who own the building, so hopefully they should sort it, but he didn't know how long that would take!!

Meanwhile, the weather seems determined not to make me homesick, as the storms which are currently battering southern England are making their presence known in Northern France too!!! I think I'm going to get wet getting to work today!!!

Blackout!!

So it's Friday night around 11pm and I'm on the phone talking to my Dad, suddenly there is a loud click and the phone cuts out, all the lights went out, the Internet switched off, and my laptop switched on to battery!! Ah, I thought, not good, OK, lets find my torch, (which I do actually keep in my drawer by my bed, always prepared me!!) Found torch, excellent, switch torch on, no batteries, not good, ok look for batteries, don't have any, so take batteries out of my camera instead. That's good I now have some light. It's probably a power cut I think. Look outside, street lights are all still on...ah ok perhaps its just in this building. Open door, expecting to see other heads popping out looking confused...no one, right ok, hit the hall light switch, Light comes on.... ah ok, that's not good means it's something just in my room. OK so lets have a look at the electricity box on the wall, try pressing the reset button...nothing, try flicking the switch... a loud click then nothing... so I phone my Dad back to see if he has any idea's...he doesn't! Try flicking a few more switched and pressing more buttons, still nothing. Decide that as it's nearly 11:30pm I might as well get ready for bed and go to sleep, resolving that if it's still not working in the morning, I can tell the teacher at the school, see if she has any ideas. (Plus being an actual French person she might have some idea of how to get on to EDF to sort it out!!)

So morning comes, I get up, try pressing the button one more time...it works!! All the lights come back on, phones back on, Internet starts loading up...everything is fine. OK I thought it must have just been a glitch, so I go to school, decided not to say anything, since it seems to be working fine. Get back, everything is fine, no problems at all during the day. Sorted I think...

Then I'm watching a DVD in bed, it gets to 11pm, and 'Click' everything goes off again!!! Like before I try pressing the button, and nothing happens, so in the end I watch the rest of the film on my laptop battery and when it ends, I go to sleep.

Then, I wake up this morning, press the button...and everything is fine!!! I really don't understand it! Annoyingly I can't go and tell the caretaker guy cos he is not here until tomorrow. I've tried looking online, and found a load of numbers, but have no idea which one I would need to call!!

The worst part is, that it is highly likely to happen again tonight, which means I need to have had a bath and washed and dried my hair before 11pm! I know I have been staying up fairly late (only going to sleep around 2-3am) and really should be going to bed earlier, but surely that should be my choice, not being forced to because I have no power!!!

Anyway hopefully I should be able to get it sorted tomorrow, I'll tell the caretaker, and if he can't sort it, then I can go to the office, and hopefully I should be able to ask the 'Brigette's' to phone EDF!!! (I've written out in French what has happened, but it's much easier telling someone face to face rather than over the phone...they might say something I don't understand!!!)

Anyone else had any experience of this? Or am I just completely weird!! I'll keep you updated!!

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside!!!

So I finally got out of Aulnoye!! One of the American assistants in Valenciennes Michael, sent me a message on Facebook, last week, asking if I wanted to go to Boulogne sur Mer. I was so desperate to get out of Aulnoye that I said yes of course!! Even though it required me to get up at 7am (!!!) to get a 7:30 train to Lille, and it was then another hour on the train to Boulogne, (luckily we managed to get the fast train from Lille, even though we didn't technically have the right tickets (although we didn't know that at the time!!) and when the guard came we played the 'sorry we're English' card!! Worked for us!!!)

Anyway we got to Boulonge and had a walk round the old town, which was really pretty, looked inside the old church, which was on top of a big hill so we had a really nice view from the top!! the we walked back down the hill to the beach. It was really really windy so the beach was empty!! It was lovely and sandy and the tide was going out so it took us ages to walk to the sea!! And no we didn't go in, but we did touch the water, and yes it was cold!!! We walked around on the beach for a bit, and then we went to the National Sea Centre, which was brilliant! My favourite bit was seeing hundreds and hundreds of tropical fish, from under the water, the glass was soooo clean, it hardly looked like it was there at all!!! So the fish were swimming right in front of my face!!

We spent about 3 hours there, and then went to get something to eat at one of the little cafes on the beach. Then it was time to go home, unfortunately we couldn't get the fast train this time, so we had to go on the sloooooow train that took over 2 hours to get back to Lille! Luckily Michael taught me a really cool word game that he knew, so we were playing that the whole way back!!

It was a really great day, even if I did have to get up so early!!!

On the walk back down from the church we saw a big English flag, and these Morris Dancers!!! How weird, I've hardly ever seen them in England, but they were in a small town on the French coast!!!

Back in Aulnoye

Disneyland was Amazing!! I had such a great birthday, possibly the best day I have had since being in France!! We did loads of stuff on Tuesday, Went on loads of rides, even got my dad on 'Big Thunder Mountain' which was quite an achievement for him!!! The weather was beautiful blue skies and sunshine!! We watched the Parade which was magical! Wednesday we went to the Studio's Park, unfortunately the weather wasn't as nice, cloudy, damp, and colder, but we still had fun!

Thursday I had to come back to Aulnoye...I wanted sooo much to be going back home on the Eurostar with the rest of my family and friends. So now I'm back and just counting down the days until I get to go home again!! Nearly there now!!