C'est dur!

And Lizi managed to make it through the snow! And the trains were on time! And the trams were working! Normandy, France: I was not impressed with your total shut down of yesterday for less than an inch of snow. I mean, I know in Caen it is by the sea, low pressure, salt in the air, hills, yadadayadayada, but you'd think you could have kept some sort of public transport going! But anyway, all is well now and everything is working, thank god. Long may this last, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will continue to happen until it stops snowing/being cold.

After spending a morning filling in some more job applications (really need to get on writing a French CV too) I went down to the train station to meet Lizi, my friend from Argenton. The last time I saw her was before Christmas, so we had a lot to catch up on! Now the English teachers at her school aren't very nice seem a bit cliquey and have caused rather a lot of stress at times. Apart from telling her to come in every break-time, in case "one of us has to talk to you" (what is wrong with an email I hear you ask?), and refusing to believe that she should have an ERASMUS grant that every other assistant in the country has received, one of them also decided recently to shout at her in the staffroom (in English, but tone is there) that English people come over here expecting France to be a "cash-desk" and because of the fact we're here there are people who are starving because they don't get enough money from the French government. And that that was her fault...not the British government's, or the politicians', hers. Not going to lie, there are so many benefit schemes in France, and so far I have never met someone who is starving through lack of money...life is pretty cushty from what I've seen. This teacher, of course, forgot to mention that we assistants actually pay tax as well, around 200 euros of it a month...so we're obviously all sponging off the state. People like that make me angry. It also makes me realise how lucky I am to be in the school that I'm at. Yes, it is smaller, three English teachers as compared to nine...but the welcome and help I received, and still receive, is just a thousand times better.

Anyway, so we went into Caen to do a little shopping. Didn't actually buy anything, but Argenton doesn't really have much of a retail environment (it being a village)...so it was more the novelty of being able to look round the shops! I forget sometimes just how lucky I am to be in a city like Caen. After looking round the clothes shops, we moved onto a shop called Maisons du Monde. Totally in d'accord with Lizi, I would want to furnish my imaginary house with the contents of this shop. I can't even explain it, but it is full of really nice, quirky décor...the kind that you think "if I bought that I would look like such an awesome person". Yet I am proud to say I again managed to avoid temptation, and bought nothing. Living here for only a year, I always have to remind myself that I have to get the things that I buy back home somehow!

We then went to meet up with Laura, Becky, Claire and Pawel in Les Touristes for a coffee. Originally we were going to go see a film, but we've decided to postpone until tomorrow so we can see the original version. That's if the snow doesn't screw everything up! Instead we went out for a lovely meal at Au Bureau...and English themed "pub". Now this term should be loosely interpreted, as it is not like any pub I have ever seen...but it does however serve awesome food! If anyone is there, I would definitely recommend their burgers, everyone in our group had one and we were all in agreement that they tasted awesome. After a lovely meal we headed off to meet Thomas, Thibaud, Flavie and Simon at Tour Solidor for some drinks. Lizi had never before tried embuscade or cervoise, which meant we had to try them all in one evening...which turned everything happily riotous. Cue Kendra shouting 'C'est dur, c'est dur!' (It's hard!) at the top of her lungs in a crowded French bar...which has the same double-entendre as in the English language. She was obviously talking about her tutoring, but to everyone else...well.

Felt sad when we had to get the last bus home...and Thibaud, ever the gentleman, escorted us to the bus stop and we had a lovely conversation about how French people never run...and then he had to do a half run to get his tram back to chez lui. Of course, Lizi and I didn't laugh one bit!