Chasse au Trésor

I seem to like framing things in things when I'm not taking pictures of people, and today's picture is no exception. So these are the ruins of Vieux Saint-Gilles , taken while taking a group of Finnish girls, their teachers, and their French correspondents on a tour round Caen. How I ended up being roped into being a tour guide is a bit of a long story which involves English politeness being played on slightly but turned out to be a really quite lovely day out.

So I started my day rather early (after the evening before being rather late!), but it was just about manageable...although 8am is not really my favourite hour of the day to start anything! So it was actually really interesting to spend time with the Fins, as they are also part of an International Section (hence the exchange programme) so the language the students mainly conversed in was English. They could speak a little French, but for the majority I would say that their second language was most definitely English rather than French. I ended up with the largest group of pupils (again, don't ask...some wanted to stay with their friends etcetc. and being English I can't say no) but they were an absolutely lovely group, really friendly and enthusiastic. The aim of the four hour morning was to take them on a whistle-stop tour of everything that Caen has to offer...and we did this in the form of a chasse au trésor (treasure hunt), where the pupils had to find out a certain fact about a certain street/building/ place that was written somewhere on that place, with bonus points for extra knowledge. I think I was very lucky (accidentally!) with my group, as they all bonded really quickly together and didn't spend their time dawdling or talking only Finnish/French. It was either that, or I was a really hard taskmaster as we finished the tour 45 minutes early so they had a good amount of time to eat their lunches!

Route: Collège Henri Brunet, Résistance (stopping to look at the leaning church, the statue of Jeanne d'Arc and the plaque on the floor), Chocolaterie Charlotte Corday (points if you know who she was!), Place Maréchal Foch (monument), Prairie (also known as le poumon de Caen), new Palais de Justice, Hôtel de Ville, Abbaye aux Hommes (tomb of William the Conquerer), old Palais de Justice, Place Saint Sauveur (the old name being La Place de Pilori - the place of the stocks), then down Rue Ecuyère (also known as Rue de la Soif or Drunk Street!), back up to Memoranda (the bookshop), Quatrans (one of the oldest houses in Caen), Saint-Pierre, Vieux-Saint-Gilles (the ruins pictured today), Abbaye aux Dames (tomb of William the Conquerer's wife, Mathilde) which was followed by a walk back down the hill to Le Port and to finish, lunch at the Château Ducal. And yes, I was knackered as well after all that walking!

Alas, my working day was not over...I then headed straight into the centre-ville to work with my private student for two hours. I hope that she is finding the lessons interesting still, I mean, she did ask to increase them from one hour to two so I think she must enjoy them! Well, one would hope. At the end of the lesson I was faced with the annoying revelation that I had left my keys in school, which are not only the keys for the school but the ones for my apartment. Luckily my responsable had picked them up, but she was unfortunately in another town but with my keys! She was, however, heading back into Caen later so I could pick them up from her then...so an accident on my part turned into a lovely afternoon spent with Thomas, and then later with Pierre and Thibaud.

Now my day does not end there (I know, busy bee!). Baptiste had invited me to an exposition at ESAM (École Supérieure d'Art et Médias - his university), and lured by the promise of free wine and food; Thomas, Flavie, Cyril and I headed off to have a look at some art and eat and drink as much as we could. And boy, were they generous with their refreshments! Lovely evening, and it was really interesting to spend time with the artists etc. although you could definitely tell it was an art school...turns out French people can wear colour after all! Now you'd think that my evening would be ended by now, but no...I headed back to the Coloc' to spend the rest of the evening with Thibaud, and give him a little bit of help with an English essay he was writing. Because he had my help, the whole thing was written in French then fed into Google Translate...something that I know I am guilty of from time to time to! Reading the literal translation sometimes is the funniest thing, as the words just don't work in the same manner as one language to another! After we had finished his work we spent the rest of the time fighting chatting about the differences between England and France, and other countries - the amount of time we spend on this topic must mean at some point soon one of us will break and admit defeat right?

Words revised today (I say "revised", as I do know some of them!):-
- Faire du shopping/des courses - to shop (normal/supermarket
- Commencer - to start
- Voler - to rob
- Perdre du poids - to lose weight
- Sauter - to jump
- Crier - to shout
- Glisser - to slip
- S'adapter - to fit
- Tourner - to turn
- Visiter - to visit
- Regretter - to regret
- Développer - to develop
- Galoper - to gallop
- Ouvrir - to open
- Répondre - to answer
- Se référer - to refer

Achievement of the day: said Bonsoir to a French person who replied with Bonjour, then looked outside and corrected himself to Bonsoir. It's the little things...