It's been a while, hasn't it?

Well, it feels like it has. It's only been since Thursday, but that's almost a week. That said, in France, it's only just over half way through a week. They're special here. A week is 8 days. A fortnight is 15 days. Anyway. Here are a few things I've done since Thursday, excluding Paris. Paris deserves it's own blogg.

CIREFE: So, CIREFE, if you don't know (which to be honest, I still don't really know what it is, so I doubt you will) is basically where we get taught French, whilst being in France. It's interesting as we don't get told "chat is French for cat", we just get terms explained to us. In French. Anyway, I'm in "Autonomie", which still means we need a teacher. I imagine people in "Maitrise", which is the top group, to just sit around looking smug. Anyway, that's pretty much it. The teachers seem nice enough, as does the class. I think I'll have to befriend one or two of them, with them mostly being Spanish and such. And me going to Spain in February. My Spanish is so bad.

Bites: Well, I've been really lucky recently. I've not been bitten in days. I have been bitten. I forget where, but I remember finding it, and wanting to weep. Not amused.

Pharmacie: So, I've had a bit of a sore throat. This being France, the only place where you can buy anything to cure maladies is the pharmacie. So, off I trotted, I prepared a whole speech in my head 'J'ai mal a la gorge, mais c'est pas trop mal. Je veux prendre qqch pour éviter que ca devienne pire'. I said this, more or less, and she said 'Donc, vous avez mal a la gorge? Prenez-le, mais pas trop'. So, that was that. It didn't get better. So, I had to return to a different one for some Strepsils. Reliable Strepsils. Also, expensive. 5€50! Not amused.

Noone at reception: In my building, the postal system works such: post arrives, people sort it, and highlight your room on a sheet of paper. Then, you say to the lady (it's normally a lady) on reception that you have post, what room you are, and your name etc etc. This whole plan hinges on the person at reception, being there. As it happens, every time I have post, there is noone there. Or, they are on their lunch, and as such, refuse to open the glass window to hand me my post. Grr.

Laundry: The prospect of doing my laundry scares me here. I was under the impression that my building had two tumble dryers, and one washing machine, the latter being en panne. Anyway, for the past however many weeks, I have been using the laundry room in Maire's building. But, she was busy, so my plan was to go downtown to Kennedy with my case and use the laundrette there. As it happened, my laundry room is two washers and a dryer. Both washers were working, so it was quite a successful trip. Boring, non?

Alan Carr: My lecturer for Europe XIXe siecle looks like Alan Carr. This made me chuckle (silently) mid-lecture.

Irish: I'm sure you know that alot of my friends here are of the Irish persuasion. They will not let me forget 800 years of oppression. Seriously. Now, it seems, lecturers don't want people to forget. When we colonised the Americas, we used our experience in oppressing the Irish (wild Irish) to help oppress the Native Americans. Someone described the Native Americans as being as bad as the 'wild Irish'. Example number two: the Irish helped form their national identity through religion. With the help of Daniel O'Connell, I think. We probably killed him. Oh well.

Staring: They're still staring. Nosey fuckers.