London baby !

I’m tiiiiiiiired… But so happy :-)
This Sunday I went to London! I took a train then the Underground (=the metro of London, also called the Tube) and met up with J, a friend from Québec that I had met in Australia.
We grabbed a sandwich at a chain called “Prêt à Manger” (so delicious) and went to sit on the big green lawns of Green Park. We got tanned a bit, then G, an English friend of mine I hadn’t seen in about a year a half came to join us. We had a walk in the park, went to see the Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye (huge big wheel on the Thames), South Bank, and then went to the Institute of Contemporary Arts to have a look at the free exhibition. I got a postcard for free at the bookshop which says: “Things are getting worse. Please send chocolate”

After that we decided to take the underground again to go to Camden. When we arrived I was amazed at how busy the area was! It was a Sunday so there was the Camden market, with lots of clothes shops, decorations, food stalls, strangely dressed people, bars, live music… Very bohemian and arty, loooooved it. G had to leave, but before she showed us a great pub called the Lock Tavern where we sat down to rest our feet and quench our thirst. E (my future housemate and colleague who comes from Italy) came a bit later with an Italian friend of hers and we all had drinks while listening to a DJ mixing electro and rock, and then watching a guy playing the guitar and singing à la Elliott Smith. I found out that a girl sitting next to me was from Belgium and had just come back from 5 years in Australia^^
On our way back to the underground station we decided to stop in a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner. We ate yummy food and improvised language lessons on food :-D Pretty cool night.

On Monday I and my 3 future housemates—including M, the Spanish assistant that we finally met that day; he’s very nice—went to the estate agent at 9am for the details about the contract (furniture, possibility to rent the fifth room, an 8-month lease…) and they said they would contact the landlord and get back to us. In the meantime we decided to visit a few other houses in case we could find something better/cheaper. So we knocked on several agencies’ doors, visited 3 or 4 houses but none of them was as good as the first one. Except one which was huge and fully furnished, but the owners were only leaving mid-November… to go live in Melbourne, Australia! Hehe

We also went to the school to get some official letters proving we were working as teaching assistants so as to open a bank account and register at the medical centre. We walked so much that at one point we decided we would reward ourselves with a break at the local KRISPY KREME doughnut shop. These doughnuts are EVIL. So good.
This was an exhausting day, but very interesting and I got to know my future housemates better!

Today was pretty much the same, except that the weather changed. Exit the sun and the blue sky, it was cold and rainy all day. Very British! I met up with my future housemates again and did all the administrative things like opening a bank account, going to the medical centre to register and do a check-up, and most of all, negotiating with the estate agent about the house. In the end, we signed the “Confirmation of terms and conditions” and paid the agency fees, but said we would not move in before seeing the house again with the furniture in it. We also had a look at the two commercial centers which are really big, us girls were so happy (especially when we went to Primark, kind of a British H&M but even cheaper!) while M, the Spanish assistant was looking at us laughing and saying oh my God I’m going to live with those 3 girls. :-D

E taught us an Italian expression at lunch to say that you are always hungry and that you can eat pretty much all the time: you’re a “pozzo senza fondo”, literally “a well without a bottom”. I told her we had the expression in French (“un puits sans fond”) but that it applied to people who were big spenders.

Anyway it was all exciting but so tiring! I keep on getting up at 8am and going to bed after midnight, and it’s going to be even worse tomorrow which will be my first day at school! I have to be there at 8.30am :-O I’m finally going to meet the staff and the students! Hope it will go well…

Finding a place to live

My first day in Slough ended well: I went to the city center with X and I met my future housemates, who are also going to work as Foreign Language assistants at Slough Grammar School: K, the German assistant, and E, the Italian assistant. They were both so so nice! E has been in Slough since the first of September whereas K arrived on Tuesday. We decided to find a house to live in together with also M, the Spanish assistant, who was arriving only the next day. I hope it will be a bit like l’Auberge Espagnole (the Spanish Apartment)… for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, go rent the movie NOW!
Anyway, we went to the Slough library where I got a card for free. We looked for ads on the internet, called a few landlords and estate agents, visited a house (nice, but not enough room for 4 people) then after this hard work we went to the local pub to share our first impressions about the city and the school around burgers, chips and pints :-p

My second day in Slough was quite busy! X and I went to the centre again to meet K and E at the pub, because it said that they had wi-fi… But when I tried to go online with my laptop to look for ads about houses to rent, it didn’t work, and the staff was not helpful at all. So we did it old school and went knocking on an agency’s door, asking them if it was possible to visit a house we had seen in a newspaper ad. The agent said sure, go there directly to check out the house, the people are still there packing their things.
So, we took the bus to this lovely little area of Slough, called Langley (very close to X’s place, and about 30 mins walk from the school) and found the house. And what a house!!! So big, with 4 bedrooms upstairs (all very big, except one which is smaller), with cupboards included in the walls, a big lounge downstairs, a kitchen with enough space to put a table and chairs to have dinner in, a garage (for parties!!!! hehe), a back garden and a small front garden, toilets downstairs, 2 bathrooms upstairs (one of them is connected to a room)... It was very bright with lots of windows, and brand new! So very clean and pretty. Plus, the beds were included, as well as a washing machine, a drier, an oven, a microwave, a fridge and a dishwasher! We LOVED it! The rent was a bit more expensive than what we were expecting to pay but we figured that if it’s too much, we’ll get a fifth person to live with us!
We were so excited about the house that we called the agent to tell them we were interested. So we’re going back on Monday to sign the papers. Yay!
After these good news, I went to do a bit of shopping at the huge local supermarket called Tesco. They had so many things, including my favourite beer in the whole world (Coopers Pale Ale, from South Australia) and curiously, they had more Australian wines than French wines :-D I bought an organic baguette which was quite expensive but deliciousssss :-)
Tonight I just stayed in, I tried to watch a movie on TV but there were just sooo many ads, every 10 mins! It’s crazy!!!! Tomorrow I’m off to London to see some friends, I can’t wait!

Arriving in Slough

Hi everyone ! Welcome to my blog :-)

So, for those who would not know exactly what I’d been up to lately, brief summary. I came back mid-January 2008 from Melbourne, Australia, where I had the time of my life studying, travelling and partying. And meeting great people. But I guess everyone knows that already! So yeah, I came back to the lovely town of Lyon, France, where I finished my “Master 2” degree in English. I wrote a “mémoire” (the equivalent of an Honours’ thesis for you aussies ;-)) comparing American and Australian politics. I had no classes at all, just these 100 pages to write, so it was very hard to focus and do all the research on my own. But I made it eventually! Yay.

That was what I was up to these last few months. Now, I’m off again. To the UK. Slough, precisely, which is located west of London. I don’t know much about the city apart from the vague facts that it’s a big industrial town which was featured in one of my favourite British series, “The Office”. I remembered the poem about the city, written by Sir John Betjeman, in 1937

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Charming hey? I had a quick look at the “Slough” Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough) and found out Slough was also very ethnically diverse, which should be interesting. Many people laughed when I told them I was going there, wishing me good luck. Others reassured me saying it was not too far from Windsor, or London, and that the surrounding area was beautiful. We’ll see.

One sure thing is that it’s the beginning of something really new from me. That is, leaving my comfortable status of student in English to become a French teacher. Well, for the moment, not a proper teacher. Just a FLA: Foreign Language Assistant. My job description could be summed up as such: making my students (high schoolers aged 15 to 18) speak French. Talk about my language, my culture. I’m going to be working at Slough Grammar School, which, judging by their website, the brochures they sent me and the very nice e-mails from the staff, looks like a pretty good school! Therefore, I’m excited. And stressed, just a bit.

After spending a day and a half in Paris catching up with friends and family, I took a plane to Luton airport at 9 on Friday morning. I had a safe (and short!) trip, though I had to buy a bigger hand luggage because I was not allowed to have my laptop in a separate bag... I hate Easyjet and their stupid restrictions! (Erm, ok, that was the part "I’m-French-so-I-have-to-complain-otherwise-the-little-French-part-in-me-will-shrink-and-eventually-die") Anyway, I ended up buying the cheapest sports bag I could find in one of the airport stores to fit all my stuff in. The cheapest bag was also the crappiest. The zip is already broken. And my giant suitcase which had survived Australia also started to crack in several parts :-(

I eventually dragged my luggage to the shuttle bus station of Luton airport, where I took a coach to London, Victoria station. The trip was about an hour and 20 mins long. Oh well, I was able to catch up on some much needed sleep. Now, I was amazed by one thing when I arrived in London. Nope, not by the double-decked red buses (though, they are cute. But I got used to them back when I spent a summer in London in 2005), nor by the cute accent of everyone around me or the gorgeous weather. No, it was the free wireless connection in the Greenline Bus that took me from Victoria Station to Slough. I was able to surf on the internet for about an hour, from a bus. I’m such a geek, hehe.

Anyway, after getting off the bus, I found my way to X’s place, who is the other French Language Assistant who kindly offered me to stay with her the time for me to find my own place in Slough. She lives in Langley, an area of Slough that looks quite cute, with lots of trees and lawns and small houses. X is really nice and helpful :-)

This article is already way too long so I’ll stop here and talk about accommodation and everything in the next one! That’s it for my first day in the UK!