Time just flies

The past 5 months have literally just flown by, everything seemed to come at once and the weeks just turned into days. I’ve finished my school placement, my uni exams and now awaiting results. I can’t believe how the first year of my masters has just flown by!

I’ve been home very briefly and had a lovely time catching up with family and friends that I hadn’t seen in what seems like forever. It’s times like those that you realise how much you appreciate those closest to you even though you don’t get to see them very often. They’re constantly there in your thoughts and things don’t change no matter how long you’ve been away.

Exam season has been light, but the nerves still kick in even when doing oral exams in English. Being so determined to achieve your goal in life puts a serious amount of pressure on you but it’s also a great motivator. I don’t think I was ever this motivated during my degree at Nottingham because I knew that it wasn’t in England that I had to necessarily do well. Now we’ve all got to stay optimistic and hope for the best.

Exams are over and I have a lot more free time on my hands, so I’ve decided to get some private work teaching english to keep myself occupied. Crazy I know but I can’t go from an extremely intense 8 months to doing absolutely nothing. It’s just not me, I’d get too bored so I need to ease myself off. In that respect, I’ve also decided to even it up with some culture-related films (aka I can’t be bothered to read the novels/read up on history so I’m watching film adaptations). I totally recommend ‘Brooklyn’ (Irish immigrant who goes to live the American Dream but is torn between home and her future) with Julie Walters and surprisingly I now want to read the book. Normally I’d watch a film and be like “That’s enough” but with this one, I want to know what happens in between and I want a better ending. I also watched ‘Suffragette’, but to be honest I was a bit disappointed that Meryl Streep only has a minor part even though she’s Emmeline Pankhurst and nobody ties themselves to the railings! That’s the one thing we all talk about, you have to go and vote because women chained themselves to the railings just to get it!

If anyone has any other (cultural) film recommendations I’d be very happy to hear them.

 

10 outrageous things that happen in exams in France

Happy New Year everyone! It’s 2016, heads down let’s focus.

After a very short but lovely visit home seeing friends and family and a lovely week skiing with my parents and partying with some great people for New Year at Club Med in Alpe d’Huez, it was time to return to uni. There were a few things which just absolutely threw me and would just be darn right illegal in UK university season. I just had to share them, so here goes:

1. There is no revision period and you have 2-4 hour exams every day. At the end of a very intense semester of classes and work, you look forward to the two-week break and hope to relax a bit and then ease yourself back into work mode. My holidays were full on non-stop which was great fun, however revision had to be fit in somewhere along with writing my literature essay. First day back and we have a two-hour exam, the MCQ part of which I didn’t even know would be a part of it. They really should tell us before the holidays what the format of the exam is. Well this turned into the most mentally-exhausting week to date. Constantly revising for the exam the following day and they only went up in intensity. And the essay to hand in at the end of the week was the cherry on the cake. When would this ever happen in the UK? You have at least a week before exams start properly and then you have a few days minimum between each exam to revise. Live the long old days!!

2. The invigilator is late to the exam. This was just ridiculous. We get told to be there at 13:30 to start at 14:00 and someone else has to let us into the exam room at 13:45, give out our papers and start the exam because the guy that’s supposed to be doing it hasn’t turned up yet. 14:02 and he turns up, kisses the lady Happy New Year, starts unpacking his briefcase and then walking up and down with his squeaky shoes. If you can’t turn up on time, don’t start putting my concentration off even more.

3. There is no announcement to start the exam. As soon as people sit down they’re writing notes on the draft paper. As soon as people have the exam paper in front of them, they turn it over and start working before everyone has theirs. There’s no robotic announcement that the exam starts now and finishes at such and such a time. Where is the equality that they lark on about so much?!

4. The invigilator has to correct the exam paper. So the guy was late, but he did point out that there were words missing from one of the multiple choice questions. Did someone even check the questions or does the green squiggly line in Word not mean anything?

5. The exam is a race. The aim apparently is to leave as soon as you can after the first hour. Write your answer, beam, baff, boom! At Nottingham, you’d be quite shocked to see somebody walk out of an exam after one hour for a two-hour exam and it’d be quite rare. Here, it’s rare to be one of the last in the exam room! At the end of my first exam I was one of three left.

6. The teachers come to speak to you during your exam. A little question to ask how you’re doing, a pause to inform you of your grade you got in your oral exam before the holidays, giving out work for the next weeks’ classes, no thank you. If we’re not stressed enough, you’re not helping by diverting our train of thought.

7. You go to the toilet unaccompanied. No way would this ever happen in the UK. You’re followed to the toilet, practically timed to see if it’s possible for you to cheat and it’s written on your exam paper that you left the room during the exam. In France they’re easy-going, leave as and when you will, no need to ask for permission. For grading so harshly, I would only expect the strictest exam conditions!

8. Pencil cases don’t need to be transparent. People bring their own pencil cases with all sorts of things in them and Tippex is allowed (the relevance of this is because mine got taken away from me during a German exam because it had writing printed into the plastic). The invigilators need to be able to see everything going on on your desk at all times in the UK.

9. Keep your bags and phones on you as long as they’re off. Obviously it is a safety measure that nobody steals your things during the exam if they’re with you in France as opposed to putting your things at the back of the hall as a measure taken to avoid people cheating in the UK. I’m not accusing anybody of anything, it’s just that this is just ludicrous for if people do give in to the temptation sitting by their feet (to be explained in no.10).

10. YOU have to MOVE to get more paper. I thought an invigilator’s job was pretty clearly defined, you watch the students to check for cheating, if they need something etc. The French have a very different idea. They don’t watch what’s going on in the room, they have a chat amongst themselves or they’re doing their own work on their computers or their heads are in a book. You have your hand up to ask for more paper and they don’t see so people resort to getting up and going to the desk to get it themselves. Twice I put my hand up to ask for more paper, I waved, tapped on the desk, “cleared my throat” (all to avoid having to ask the person next to me to move so I could go and get the paper myself). I had to resort to “Monsieur” to which he just looked at me with a confused expression and I had to ask for paper, it didn’t come naturally to him as to why I had to speak during an exam. I couldn’t believe it, especially the second time.

I’m obviously not a fan of exams and I am a strong believer that the conditions should be the fairest they can be, but this past week just took the mick. If you’re gonna mark us in such a cut-throat manner, you can at least give us the best chances to do well. I can’t be alone it that surely?

10 Things I’ve Learned From Studying In France (so far)

That’s right, I’ve taken the plunge and set out to live the dream OFFICIALLY! I’ve moved to France, got an apartment and am on the next educational journey in my life. Never thought I’d go back to uni, but hey ho that’s life when you have to have a masters to take a teaching exam (really a national competition!). Here’s a few things I’ve learned so far:

1. You really get value for money in France – the fees are pipsqueak in comparison to what I had to pay for my bachelor’s degree and the amount of hours of lectures is just unbelievable. I mean seriously, what student pays 260€ for the year and gets 28 hours tuition per week!!!!!!
2. Student life doesn’t exist – well for me anyway! What student has class at 8am and has class all day practically everyday until 5:30pm with only a lunch break and then has so much extra work to do in the evenings that the only mental break is when you sleep? That is my life. No time to join a club or do anything fun coz I’m exhausted mentally and physically. I have become a hermit. Quite depressing really, isn’t it? Haha 😀 There is the occasional retail therapy, of course, to lighten the mood.
3. I really shouldn’t have avoided literature modules – anyone close to me will know that I absolutely hated GCSE English Literature and there was no way I would opt for any sort of French Lit modules during my degree if I could help it. Well, I probably should have taken a few modules seeing as translation classes are based on works of literature. Bummer
4. Translation classes give a few laughs – it’s a very big change to what I’m used to translating, no more newspaper article type translations. Golden rules – keep the imagery and be idiomatic. I’m not gonna lie, this is causing a few problems and there are ups and downs in morale but I’ll only mention the laughs. I’ve acquired new vocabulary/expressions and not of the French kind, but of the English sort. Some right crackers come out in translation from the teacher and here are a couple of examples, I’ll let you be the judge: “he entrusted the custody of his car to him whilst on holiday in Europe” (aka left it in his hands to look after it) & saving the best till last “changing her mind at a critical point, shilly-shallying in order to muddle up a clear issue setting up conditions to the prospect of easy relationships”. Shilly-shallying took me by surprise and of course it has become an ongoing joke between the anglophones/”foreigners” in my class. I really shouldn’t shilly-shally with the terms!
5. French methodology is another kettle of fish – tis the bane of my existence in France!! No, I’m not exaggerating. It is so totally different to how things are done in the UK that is a complete nightmare for me. It’s like relearning how to write an essay with terms that don’t even have an equivalent translation in English so yeah impossible to master that part and so the rest is just ridic. 3 main parts and then sub-parts, most obvious to least obvious. Well if you manage to pick out that information from the texts, surely it’s all the same level of obviousness?! As you can probably tell from my rant, it is quite a frustrating issue.
6. The teaching competition exam doesn’t do what it says on the tin – so we have to sit two five hour written exams (one translation/linguistic-grammar analysis and one comparing/contrasting documents to write a commentary) over the course of two days in March/April and then if we pass those we go on to do two oral exams, in summer, analysing documents and explaining how to exploit them. Err… so how do you know if we’ll be good teachers or not? It completely defeats the object of whether you can actually teach or not. Even our work placement in a school that we have to do as part of our masters isn’t even graded on the practical aspect, but on the report! And I thought I could really play to my strengths…
7. I should’ve read a lot more when I was younger – I used to read a lot as a child, but obviously doing billions of lessons on literature now, I read the wrong fiction. Put it this way, Jacqueline Wilson and Harry Potter is not on the “syllabus”. If only the classics had been more appealing during my childhood. If only I had been more interested in history classes, I probably would know a lot more about what we study in our American and British civilisation classes (history & politics). I definitely should have started reading the books on the reading list earlier. It’s a game of catch up for me now.
8. Students of English are posh – apparently university students of English are told to either have an American or British accent when they speak English, but my lord you could confuse them for natives. The British accents are very impressive though, they’re so posh! I sound like a commoner next to them haha 😀 (P.S if anybody in my class is reading this, I’m not taking the mickey, I love your posh accents, you’re definitely ready to meet the Queen :P)
9. Nothing functions in the holidays – It’s the holidays, I’m going on strike! Nothing happens, absolutely nothing. Nobody replies to emails even if they’re for really important things, library is closed so you can’t go take out a book, people are literally on holiday. I can’t explain how much stress levels rise administrative wise.
10. Classrooms are inhabitable – it was freezing and the heating wasn’t turned on, you’re sitting in your winter coat looking like a lemon and trying to type the teacher’s transcript because they don’t give you lecture notes/don’t use powerpoint presentations. On the other hand, the sun shines in so much that you feel like you’re sunbathing (in your jumper) on one side of the classroom it’s so hot. Another thing, tables are so titch you can just about fit two people with laptops/notes on one and chairs are like being back at primary school (plastic or wooden). I’d pay a few bob more per year to be able to sit on padded chairs for 2/3 hour classes any day.

They’re just a few things from my experience as a student again so far. We’ll see what new material I’ll have conjured up in the next weeks to come. It’s been a bit frustrating, but interesting at the same time. It can only get better, well at least I hope so. That’s all for now folks, à bientôt…

‘It’s been a long time since you last wrote a blog’, ‘Yes I know!’

It’s been a very long time since I last wrote a blog and I’ve been regularly saying ‘I know, I know’ to the forever continuing statement ‘you know it’s been a long time since you last wrote a blog’, I mean of course I know, I don’t hire someone to write it for me. I have been busy with teaching in France, taking a gap year does not mean that I literally decide to have a gap in my life and do nothing (but then again my French final year students didn’t know what it was)! Now the time has come, however, where I have finished my assistantship, am back in the UK and actually feel like sitting down and writing this. It may be the fact that the Cannes Film Festival is putting me into a commentary mood and I miss France, that the only thing on television at the moment is the off-putting Jeremy Kyle Show or that I’m supposed to be doing other things and I’m avoiding doing them. We all know that it’s the latter even though I do miss France and especially the hot weather that’s arrived as soon as I leave!

So a short update on the past four months of my life in St Jean de Maurienne; teaching has been a lovely experience yet again and especially being able to teach pupils of all levels and being able to play games as well as training up the final years and getting more experience with my private tuition.

Weather has not been the best for a ski season so I didn’t ski as much as I would have liked to either, it’s not the best when the snow doesn’t come to top up what’s been removed. Valloire is as nice as ever though and had a lovely weekend in February when my Dad came over for a short weekend before driving home with me for a quick visit during the holidays.

Shortly after I went to an open day for the University Savoie Mont Blanc in Chambery as I am currently in the process of applying to do a masters in teaching, education and training to be able to teach English eventually. It’s a nice small campus near the mountains and so fingers are crossed that all goes to plan. It’s stressful, but going surely and steady. Writing a personal statement in French is proving to be a task, but nobody writes one overnight.

I’ve done a little bit of holidaying as well. Going to Barcelona with a couple of assistants was a fantastic girls’ trip. That was most definitely a weekend of sightseeing, spa-ing and sunburn. I have such English skin, it’s just disappointing that people couldn’t even tell I’d been away after a few days even though my face had changed colour.

Finished off my assistantship in Geneva with a load of sightseeing on and off the lake, museums and walking. It happened to be the Geneva marathon this weekend as well so was lapping up the atmosphere in the tent area. Big warning in case people underestimate Switzerland – it is really expensive, aka a Subway sandwich costs 15CHF which from coming across the border is the equivalent of 15€ and 7€ more. Now I thought Switzerland was expensive, but not that much more expensive. It’s a good job their salaries reflect the cost of living.

Now that I’m home and seen some family and friends I’m looking forward to my cake courses I’m doing tomorrow and in a couple of weeks time. I am a keen baker of cupcakes and I baked quite a few times during my time in France so I’m pretty excited to learn some new things. Other than that I’m looking forward to seeing other friends and family because there are some much needed catch ups. Being in France has almost been like I’ve been in another world, however I can’t help but feel that life was a lot more relaxing and that’s why I like it.

That’s all for now, hopefully that has filled in a few gaps from what people have heard I’ve been up to 🙂

Who am I?

Salut tout le monde! This is just a quick update on some things that have brought a smile to my face during the past week even though I’ve not been feeling my best due to crazy temperature changes – aka it turning freezing so the snow could fall and create a lovely picturesque setting and then temps shooting up ten degrees the following day, the snow all melting and it practically being spring at the end of NOVEMBER!! I can’t help but be a little worried now that I’ve received my season ski pass and the snow is melting before my very eyes.

Here’s what’s happened:

1) I’ve been playing ‘Who am I?’ with my classes so the pupils have had to write somebody famous on their piece of paper which is then stuck on somebody else’s head. My instructions have been very clear – somebody FAMOUS/CELEBRITY. I must admit there’s been some good ones, but one tops them all. Cathy. I was wondering who this famous person was, maybe they’re a French celebrity or something. I couldn’t ask in front of the group otherwise I may have given it away. So we’ve started some rounds of questions and there’s a lot of giggling when we get to Cathy. I’m not understanding why, but I like laughter in class so I let it continue, but then I’m receiving looks. I cracked it!! For English speakers this may not be obvious, but for those of you who speak French or have a good understanding of the French-English accent, Cathy as in Cat-e is actually how they pronounce my name Katie. Therefore Cathy is me and I am a celebrity/famous person in their eyes. This happened to me twice!! Do I say that I was quite flattered haha 😀

2) It’s always a nice day when your pupils say hello to you outside of class when they see you, but my 6emes (11 year olds – 1^st year at middle school) are so cute. I walked into the doorway, their heads turned and KATIE! The smiles and excitement to see me was quite a welcome. I don’t ever remember my year 7 language class being so excited to go with the language assistant, it was more daunting than exciting. Learning numbers has never been so much fun!

Anyways that’s all for now, until the next time, ciao.

How now brown cow?

Back into the swing of things after a two-week break at home, I’m getting my creative tête on. The past couple of weeks since I’ve been back have been the most cultural I’ve had in a while.

So I’ve been getting arty painting a mask and me being me, I like things to look pretty. I drew my design and I was told I was being far too ambitious and that it wouldn’t work. Well the challenge was on. I whipped out my year 9 painting skills, selected my brush and the concentration was high. Two hours later and I must say, I impressed myself that I managed to pull it off. Voilà my masterpiece that is now being proudly displayed in my room:

My next cultural indulgence was the Salon du Chocolat in Lyon. Literally every chocolate-lover’s fantasy, only second to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. We tasted flavoured chocolate, pralines, nougat, truffles from all different chocolatiers in the Rhone-Alpes region and even a special few came from Paris. Oooh fancy us :p. Not only could you taste chocolate, but we watched demonstrations by well-known patissiers and after standing for an hour at the front of the catwalk, we watched the chocolate fashion show. Some of the creations were jaw-dropping “wow how is that possible?” moments. Here are a few of my favourites:

Lastly the Salon des vins et saveurs was in St Jean and I tell you, 2.50€ was an absolute bargain for all the wines, cheese and sausage we tasted. We even got to keep the glass! I must say, however, wine-tasting at 10am after a very light petit déjeuner gives Sunday a very cheery start 😀

We went to a puppy exhibition that afternoon as well and yes there are a lot of people against that kind of thing, but I’ve been wanting a pug for ages and photos just don’t do them justice, I wanted to see one in the flesh. Well, puppies are just pure gorge aren’t they? I know that after seeing these cutie-pies, I will at some point be getting one:

School-wise everything has been going nicely, it’s just annoying that I remember faces but still have to get my list of names out for each class. Why is it that you only remember the names of the ones that chat or are cheeky?! Repetition, repetition, repetition. Tongue twisters have been my most amusing lesson for the past week, it actually shocks me that I’ve only had a couple of my however many pupils that know how to pronounce ‘cow’. At least at the end of their elocution lesson they left saying ‘how now brown cow’ correctly.

Anyways that’s all for now folks, until next time ciao…

Guess who’s back???

So this funtimegal is back in France and in the same lil town of St Jean de Maurienne (aka ALPS CENTRAL!!) I’m working as an English assistant in the same high school again (SURPRISE everyone!!) and also in the middle school so this time I’m getting an insight into both parts of secondary education in France. I’ve been asked many times why I decided to come back and basically to put it straight, I finished uni and think I figured out what I wanted to do so I’m having a kind of ‘gap year’ to confirm if teaching English in France is for me. We’ll see what happens…

I’ve been into both my schools and met loads of pupils, but there’s still more classes to meet and therefore more names to learn. To put it into perspective, each class has more or less 28 pupils and I have about 20 classes, I’ll let you do the math. Some teachers remember and recognise me from before and the new teachers I’ve met are all lovely as well so it’s starting off really well. I’m feeling ever better about my French as well because I have been told by teachers and pupils that I only have a slight twinge of an accent when I speak French so yes I am loving it haha 😀

I also have a neighbour this year from Guatemala and there are 3 other assistants here in Maurienne and we range from Europe to South Africa to Central America. The intercontinental jokes start here 😛

Well it’s almost the holidays and there’s nothing else to tell so à la prochaine!!

It’s all over :'( The end is here!!

So I’m sat in Hamburg airport’s business lounge waiting for my flight back to London because the year abroad has now come to an end, which means back to British reality: Uni. Which means studying. It feels like I’ve been away from uni for so long, but the year abroad has flown by and it is quite sad that it’s all coming to an end. As soon as I’m back home in Hertfordshire – boom!! All over.

So to update on the past and final month of my year abroad:

My sister came out to visit me in Hamburg at the start of August. A weekend of catching up with my lil chou fleur was just lovely – cocktails, Reeperbahn, shopping, chocolate and “Sex and the City” :] We didn’t know then that that would be the last time we’d be seeing each other for a while though because today she’s gone off to start uni and I won’t see her when I get back tonight. Sad times for us.

At work I’ve seen some more great films so when they start coming out in the next few months – if I’ve seen them, I can give recommendations teehee :p And something that did make me laugh recently was when I was at the cinema in the morning, I arrived and signed my name and all of a sudden a cappuccino was in front of me. Now when I go to the cinema in the morning I order a cappuccino, but the guy remembered my order and I didn’t even have to ask. I thought well not only do I have a ‘local’ coffee shop but now a ‘local’ in the form of a cinema. Good job I didn’t want to order anything else that morning!!

We also had an editorial tennis tournament organised by the lovely work Mädels. Now I must say I was not looking forward to getting on the tennis court and making a fool of myself seeing as I’ve not played tennis probably for about 7 or 8 years and I was never any good. Out of court was always my master move. Want to lose, pick me. I’m not too bad at table tennis but what I am pretty good at is tennis on the Wii. I’ve been out of practice a bit since I haven’t had a TV or a Wii for the past year, so I wouldn’t say I’m overly fit and I was not able to watch Wimbledon to brush up on technique. BUT after some drastic desperate tactic advice from some friends, “Katie Murray” (as I was called on the day) found that drive and from nowhere some technique. I AM NO QUITTER!! We all played in doubles and the competition started. Team colours. Team names. I was in ‘Hot Shots’. The game was on. And it got serious. Real serious. Stress levels rose. And we were all playing hard. There were aches and pains, but we persevered. Now if tennis was my thing, I’d have taken each lost point pretty seriously, but I took it with a pinch of salt and just carried on and enjoyed the day. Sad to say, but the ‘Hot Shots’ were not as hot as we’d hoped. Still, the TV Movie Tennis Open made me realise that tennis is actually fun to play and the fact that I was asked if I’d played tennis before a few times and that I have some Wimbledon-style went purely to my head and made my ego triple in size I think. LOL!! Purely fantastic memories :]

I also took a week holiday, which I must say I do think I needed, and I jetted off to France again pour voir mes proches. Sun, heat, clear blue skies, swimming in a lake (thought I would never do that in my entire life!!), BBQ and catching up. Was so nice and so sad to leave again. This time more than the last because I knew it would be the last time for a good while.

Back to work for the last week and I was constantly reminded by the girls in the coffee shop. The countdown had started for them as well. They were going to be losing one of their most loyal customers. So yes the last week and as per I’ve seen a couple more films. All I can say is now I never want to go back to Seaworld after the documentary made me cry in the cinema. Thank God there was hardly anybody in there who went to see it. Twas very emotional. But Robert de Niro’s new film with Michelle Pfeiffer – that is something to watch – it did make me laugh even if it was bloody and about the Mafia 😛

Cocktail evening with the Mädels for an after-work-leaving-shindig was really nice. Then Friday morning I had a joint interview with Iain Glen. From the name I thought ok, he can’t be that famous. Some research later, boy was I wrong. Game of Thrones, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Spooks, Kick Ass 2 etc. He’s worked with huge names in film, TV and on stage. I must say I was very excited to meet him. And he is such a nice guy. Just had to get a photo with him.

Friday afternoon came as a bit of a surprise. 10 am in the office conference the editor-in-chief thanked me and announced it was my last day and that was nice and I thought that was done and dusted. Oh no. In comes everyone as I’m in the middle of typing out the transcript for the interview with Iain Glen. It suddenly became very hot. Everybody came in and they gave me a box of souvenirs and a card with the Queen Mary 2 on it (just how I arrived). So now I have currywurst crisps, caramel syrup and coffee so I can make my own caramel machiattos, Goodbye Lenin on Bluray and other lovely yummy prezzies 😀 Then I had to say some words. Literally was more nerve-wracking than doing a german oral exam at uni. The german and nerves were put to the test, but I overcame it. Breakthrough!! Well in my eyes anyway :S

So that’s all. I have had a lovely time in Hamburg and it’s definitely been an interesting four months work-wise. The opportunities I’ve had have been so cool and I’ve met some very lovely people. Hopefully I’ll be back at some point in the near future for a night out on the Reeperbahn or something. Who knows?!

Having spent only four weeks in the past year in total in England though and despite having had an amazing year abroad working as a language assistant and at the magazine and meeting so many wonderful people that I will never forget who’ve added to my time away, I am happy to be heading home for a little while to see the family and friends. Don’t think it’ll be too long before I’m abroad again though 😀 I said in one of my first blogs that this would be a trial run, I think it’s more than certain now <3<3

Official Nelson Update!!

So this is going to be my shortest blog post ever – record!!

It’s only a quick update in relation to my Nan’s classic “I saw Nelson Mandela 20 years ago in Bedford outside Debenhams”. As if you did was what we were all thinking.

Gotta give it to her. After reading my blog she took to Google to find out if this world famous man came to Bedford.

Turns out she got the wrong year, but she did see him in 2000!! He was there!! Had to Google it myself just to check and it’s true.

Well that’s put a smile on my face this morning 😀

That’s all for now. Tschüss xx

Here, there and everywhere – airport security ✔

As I’m nearing the end of my year abroad it’s becoming slightly harder to bring myself round to writing these blogs. I’ll only have a couple more and then it’ll all be over 😥 But in the meantime I’ll just enjoy the rest of my time in what’s now sunny, hot Hamburg and update you on what I’ve been up to in the past month.

 

Start of July I took a trip back to my lil town in France for a long weekend. How I managed to fly from Hamburg to Frankfurt to Lyon and back again without having my passport checked I do not know. Talk about being hot on international security!! Pretty much doesn’t exist in European airports, but France are right on it at the Italian border on the trains as I remember. Another shocking part of this trip – there’s still snow on top of the mountains in JULY!! I’d never been to the Alps in summer so that was quite unexpected. Twas a lovely lovely weekend anyway.

 

Snow 😀

A week later my family were all abroad. The parents and sister jetted off to Mexico without me!! But I had an amazing weekend with my nan and aunties in Hammy B. I think the sun affected us slightly when doing a load of sightseeing in on bus and on boat with a whole load of containers (private joke) coz we had some rather hilarious moments and perhaps a couple inappropriate quotes worth noting:

 

1)   “The eagles have landed” – probs shouldn’t have said that one in Germany

2)   After whipping out another pair of glasses – “They’re my sightseeing glasses”

3)   “If there was a war tomorrow, oops probably shouldn’t mention that here” – strike 2

4)   “I saw Nelson Mandela in Bedford outside Debenhams 20 years ago” – what a classic from my nan 😀

 

All round we had a nonstop weekend of laughter and I got my yearly dose of sunburn 😀

 

Work-wise I have had a very exciting month of cinema film previews. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to say some of the titles or write anything about them because I had to sign something saying I couldn’t until they are released or it’s close to release date. However I shall explain my incidents with airport security at the cinema. Yet again quite a shock. Normally it’s just the “Please turn off mobile phones”, but this one week was rather progressively getting more and more extreme.

 

Monday – unnameable film – bag check & metal detector over the body

Tuesday – Smurfs 2 – hand in electronic equipment, bag check & body scanner

Wednesday – Camille redouble – nothing (the French are quite easygoing as ever)

Thursday – Das kleine Gespenst – no problem just a kids film

Friday – Wolverine – hand in all belongings & airport body scanner

 

Preview 😛

Wolverine was one week before the official release and in this cinema called the Savoy, so when I read the location I already thought this is gonna be quite plush. When I arrived we had to hand in everything, go through a body scanner and then decide where to sit in this theatre-like cinema with seats that when you sit in your feet unexpectedly go up and you go flying back! Someone else sat down next to me and I saw that her feet were higher than mine so obviously I tried to look for some form of recliner/push back in my seat without looking incredibly weird bashing on a chair. To no avail I gave up and waited for the film to start in my comfy indoor sunlounger. Just before the film started, however, a couple of americans were behind me and they were also discussing the feet-in-the-air-thing. Two seconds later I went flying backwards and my feet shot up!! Turns out there was some form of table behind my chair that had created a kind of wedge. Well now in complete comfort after the adrenalin rush disappeared the film started and I love Hugh Jackman even more now.

 

So a couple other films which I can name and I totally recommend are “Behind The Candelabra” and “Turbo”. Now I know “Turbo” is an animation film about snails, but literally it was so good. I had fun and was laughing a lot. It became even more hilarious when I wrote a review about it and was basically adding snail into any word going. It’s even better in German when so many adjectives and words begin with ‘S’ and you can just add ‘Schnecke’ onto the front. “Ein spannendes Schneckenabenteuer auf dem Weg zu Selbstschneckenentdeckung” – an exciting snail adventure on the path to self-snail-discovery.

 

I’ve also been printed in the magazine again for my interview I did with Nick Reynolds.

 

My interview!!

And this week I was at a very plush hotel at a press conference for the series “Borgia” doing joint interviews with one of the girls from work with the author and one of the main actors Mark Ryder who refers to uni as Shottingham. A little reminder of ’home’.

 

After our interview with Mark Ryder 😀

I’ve now become a regular at my local coffee shop – they remember my order!! They may not be alcoholic drinks but I still have a local. I seem to remember being told in the pre-departure meetings to get a local. That’s a tick next to that box.

 

Another couple of lovely things that have happened to end on: I was in town doing a little bit of shopping to feed my cravings I’d been having for so long and the World Triathletes cycled past me – Great Britain was in the lead 😀 I don’t know how it ended but that was quite cool. And lastly we’ve just had our summer work party which was at a very nice restaurant outside in the lovely summer heat. I could definitely get used to this 😀

 

Anyways that’s all for this month. Tschüss mwah xx