Paperwork and Public Transport.

Caution: this blog entry may contain rants, long rambling Suzie stories which have no real purpose (or they do, but I forget them), and general tomfoolery in rural France.
Suggested method for approaching this blog entry: see the headings and ignore what does not interest you.

Navigating SML3010:
So I spent my Sunday morning working out what on earth is included in the module Exeter University use to assess the Year Abroad for those doing British Council placements. Turns out, after bragging to all my friends doing their finals this year, that I actually have quite a bit more work to do for this module than I first thought... But I was not deterred (if slightly put out at the thought of having to break from stuffing my face in patisseries and wandering around chateaux) and I set about making various lists, sticky notes and reminders in my filofax to try and get a handle on the tirade of personal goals, vocabulary logs and 'employability reports' that would be expected of me come August 2013. Which sounds far off, I know, but one might end up waking from a millefeuille induced coma in late July and realise that part of their degree does still require fulfilling.

Left: a millefeuille, for those of you who don't know what it is. It literally means 'a thousand leaves' and is made by layering pastry (I believe filo pastry) and custard/cream multiple times. Scrumptous. I had one today (Thursday 4th) in fact at the Lycée canteen with my lunch (€3.04 for a salad, roll, hot main meal and pudding plus free water).

Rural french public transport:
Upon glancing at my watch I realised that I had to go and get my train to Orléans at 1715 (synchronise watches - one for the OTC people reading!) so I promptly collected my things and walked to the train station in the evening sunshine. I noticed the coaches as I crossed the car park. I noticed the people in the lobby as I crossed over to where the platforms where. I noticed the automatic doors definitely not opening as I got closer and closer. And then I noticed the people watching as I gave the automatic doors a little shove, as if to say 'you know you should really be opening for me. Please.' Feeling perplexed, I asked a woman in the lobby what was going on, and got a reply about how complicated the situation was for the woman behind the counter who was dealing with a Gendarme man. The counter-woman finished dealing with the Gendarme-man, said something in French I didn't catch and the 'complicated'-comment-woman grabbed me and said 'c'est vous! c'est vous!' and pushed me towards the counter.

Counter-woman looked at me. I looked at counter-woman. What did she want from me?? I sort of bleated something along the lines of 'where are the trains?' and pointed limply at the automatic doors barring the platform from me. After a few more confused exchanges about where I was going, whether I had tickets, when I had tickets for, I was essentially told that 1. there would be a coach (the one outside) taking me to Salbris where I could then get my connection to Orléans. And 2. to go away. On my return from my journée d'accueil in Orléans I found the same situation - a coach, not a train to Romo.

Cathedral Saint Croix in Orléans

The solution to my puzzlement came in the form of a French lady who offered me a lift back to the MAJO from Romo station. Breaking every personal safety rule I had ever been given by my parents, the British Council and society (i.e. don't get in a car with a stranger) I gratefully took it. I think a little OTC-inspired part of me was thinking 'I could take her...'. And it was when conversing with this lady that I asked if it was always a coach that took people from Romo to Salbris, and what about in the other direction towards Gièvres? 'Oh it's always like this', she said. 'The railway hasn't worked in ages. First they said September, now they say November...' Why, why, why had that girl behind the counter not told me this when I bought my bloody train tickets?? With my thick English accent and stammered, grammatically wonky French*, how could she have possibly thought that I would know that the trains don't work in the countryside?
* which is apparently so incomprehensible that the girl at the boulangerie couldn't understand 'un pain au raisin s'il vous plait' - very depressing.

So the moral of that story is, take lifts from strange French ladies who you don't know (but reckon you could beat in a fight) because they will tell you more about how to survive rural French transport than the people in charge of giving you your train tickets.

The best things about the Journée d'Accueil...
* most of the day being in English so that we English Assistants were 100% clear on the important details of teaching, bureaucracy etc. Having a day where my brain didn't start melting from French over-exposure was bliss. 
* being able to have a really good chat with some English and American Assistants who are living in Blois (a town not too far from Romo). I have been a bit deprived of company which is my age recently, I hope it didn't show through...