Le voyage en Grèce

As a little change from my France-based adfrenchures, this post is all about my time in Greece with the lyceé as part of their annual trip abroad. Hundreds of photos on Facebook to follow.

Before we landed on Greek soil, there was a gruelling 48 hour journey to endure via coach and ferry. Somehow I managed to trick myself into believing that we'd only be on the boat for a few hours rather than 26, so when I discovered this, considering I'm still scarred from the Titanic film, I was really not looking forward to it. So as I sat in my cabin awaiting my impending doom, I decided to sleep through it, managing to miss breakfast and lunch, and setting the precedence for my reputation as the sleeping assistant.

The city of Athens 

Against my expectations, we survived the journey and arrived to snow-capped mountains at Patras, before moving on to Olympia to start day 1 of our tour of the country. I have to say, considering this is a city that most probably depends on the trade of tourism, I didn’t really rate it. The streets were full of potholes and there were empty sandbags and other things just left out on the main site, which kind of ruined the atmosphere a bit for me. Nevertheless, we had a guide with us, who managed to redeem these factors, by delivering the fascinating history of the place, such as the many stories about the Greek gods, and the birth of the Olympic Games.

View from the hotel room on the last morning

Throughout the week we passed through many other towns and cities including Mystras, Athens and Delphi, to name a few. As I said, I found the history and mythology all quite interesting (even though we spent lots of time looking round churches which didn’t hold my attention for long), but the thing that struck me most about Greece was the incredible views that surrounded the main sites, something which I really hadn’t expected.

For a school trip I actually ate some incredible food. Once we’d passed the first few days of a strictly chicken and chips diet and moved further down Greece, we were able to taste a few of the national dishes such as Moussaka and a proper Greek kebab (immense), as well as the standard salads packed with olives and feta cheese. Dessert was a little disappointing though as apparently Greece has a serious overpopulation of oranges. We were sent away with bags of them, and once you had finished one at the table, it had slyly been replaced by a fresh one, moments later. It’s safe to say I’m sticking to bananas and apples for the next month or two.

Corinth canal

With each meal, in fitting French style, all of the teachers insisted on having an ‘aperitif’ before we ate, whilst we waited for all of the pupils to finish. I didn’t know this, but Ouzo is Greek, so this was of course the drink of choice. On the first night, I was incredibly cocky with my student mentality, recalling stories of all the Sambuca shots I do on a standard night out, and seeming to think that the two were practically the same. So I joined in on the order, with my double ouzo, which everyone downed right away. As soon as I took a sip however, my throat seemed to catch on fire, so I was forced to slowly sip the rest, which was rather embarrassing after all of my claims. Turns out Greek Ouzo is a little stronger than the normal stuff. France – 1; Britain - 0. I decided to stick to beer after that, which is apparently all we Brits ever drink anyway, so conforming to the stereotype was the easier option all round.

So, to give a brief summary of everything else that happened/the trip as a whole: The food and hotels were amazing considering it was part of a cheap school package; the weather was crap; my photos mostly include the remains of buildings; I managed to embarrass myself copious times (you can add to the list sober dancing on the last night on the ferry); but most importantly I managed to speak French non-stop for a whole ten days! The teachers and pupils were incredibly patient and taught me lots of new vocab (I now know the translation for arse hole, which was an amusing concept to see explained) and above all I got complimented a lot on my ability. Turns out the English accent is apparently ‘cute’. Good to know. So all in all, it was a pretty successful week.

For those of you that don’t already know, I’m leaving France on 20^th April, which means this will be my penultimate blog (unless I decide to blog about my trip to Disneyland in June) so there won’t be much more of my crap chat to put up with.

See you all very soon!

Blog time no see

Yet again, I've slipped slightly off the bandwagon with this blogging business, and as I'm on my way back to England again for the penultimate time, there's rather a big gap to fill. As ever though, I shall do my best to be brief.

For those of you that speak to me on a more regular basis, you may know that the first few months here weren't the easiest. The location, combined with poor public transport, and an average population age of about 60 made it a little hard to assimilate. But this time round has definitely been the busiest and best so far. I became the token English at the local badminton club that runs every Tuesday, and have been adopted by a few French families, as well as the standard weekly trips to Lyon, which has all kept me fairly busy. Oh and I sometimes do a bit of work here and there...

So yeah, la vie est belle en France at the moment which has taken my mind off missing friends and family and all the home comforts. I do have one complaint, however. The emerging of a social life has meant that I've been put in rather awkward situations on a regular basis. Why? Two words: European kisses. I had one particularly awkward incident with a teacher in the staffroom a few weeks ago, who came to greet me in said way. As he leaned in for the kiss, I recoiled a little, completely forgetting, and once I realised and went in for the kiss too, it was too late as he'd already pulled back. This resulted in some kind of pigeon-like head dance which must have looked really strange to anyone else in the room. And then there's the times when neither one of you go quite far enough to touch cheeks, and then overdo it and end up giving each other more of a Scottish kiss than a European one. Even when you're in a group of people, and you don't know all of them, you're expected to do it to each person. I know I'm not socially inept so I'm going to say it's my Englishness which makes me dread this so much. Or just the fact that I always seem to make it incredibly awkward in my forgetfulness. A good old-fashioned 'bonjour' definitely suits me better.

Aside from that, things are definitely running smoothly, and people have been regularly commenting on my good level of French, which is a huge confidence boost as I only have another 6 weeks after the holidays to improve. With that in mind, next term I'm going on the school trip to Greece for 10 days, so English won't be an option. Although I am missing St. Paddy's day celebrations at the expense of this, so I may have to convince the teachers to have a little drink with me on the ferry, or just sneak off and ride solo. So yeah, with that and a potential trip to Montpellier on the cards, I've got a lot to look forward to during my final stint in France - an incredibly surreal concept!

I'll be back in England for the next 2 weeks so I will probably see you most of you around!

À bientôt!

P.S The hunt for snails and frogs legs continues...