AS MUCH AS it disappoints me, the mystery of which I speak isn’t a Marple-style whodunit in the streets of Orleans, but rather something that came up one rainy lunchtime in the staffroom. I can’t remember how, but the word ‘chèvrefeuille’ (literally ‘goatsleaf’) came up in conversation and nobody – neither I nor the other…
A FOGGY HEATHROW. That means a flight delayed by an hour – a bearable delay, but a delay that made leaving home a little harder, as all I could think about was my bed as I sat sandwiched between prattling passengers in the departure lounge. It’s crazy, however – a journey of little under 400…
IDEALLY I WOULD have written this earlier, but there’s been so much to do in the last few weeks that a) I couldn’t find the time and b) didn’t quite know what to write about. At any rate, the first term of my job as a language assistant is over, and I am writing this…
‘IMMERSE YOURSELF IN the culture of the country you’re living in!’ our year abroad coordinator would cry at those frequent evening lectures in second year. So, when some of my colleagues invited me along to an exhibition on the Mayans in Paris’ Musée du Quai Branly, I thought my year abroad coordinator would approve. The…
LAST WEEK I had the most continental birthday ever – I woke up in France, had an Italian dinner, was bought Belgian chocolate by a colleague and had more birthday messages in German than I did in English. The following day I woke up and remembered that I was 22. Sounds so much older than…
I STARTED WRITING this entry in the baggage hall of Charles de Gaulle, long after most of the passengers had left the airport with their bags. I, however, lingered and made excellent use of the WiFi on offer to me. No, I didn’t traipse all the way to the other side of Paris just for…
SO MY FIRST week at school is complete… OK, I didn’t really teach anything per se but instead observed classes and introduced myself to the students. You know the sort of questions: ‘what’s your name?’ ‘how old are you?’ and ‘do you like manga?’, which an unusually high number of students asked me before going…
HAVE YOU EVER bought a train ticket for a price you’re not that willing to pay, only to find that you get on the train unobstructed and reach your destination an hour later (again, unobstructed) without the ticket ever being checked? I have, and it’s hugely irritating. It happened to me on Friday from Paris…
