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I had to write this down: the Caterpillar Angel

The first ever night out of second year should have been bloody fantastic. Finally back with university friends and headed to the union, we had drinks at someone’s house beforehand and then set off. Should have been fantastic: was horrendous.

It seems bizarre to me that the mere beginning of the tale is that I completely lost my debit card, ID and money (as well as the bag they were in) during the walk from pre-drinks to the union. I later realised this had happened because I put my purse in the pocket of my shorts; unfortunately for me, those shorts do not, in fact, have pockets. A grand start to a grand night.

A kind (pragmatic) friend helped retrace my steps in search of my valuables while the rest of the group went into the club, but it turns out that streets are actually quite dark when it's dark. So I instead hoped my belongings might just be at her house from earlier –  she went to the club, and I set off in the opposite direction, to her house, mortified and angry. I stropped back through the student living area of Hyde Park, grimacing over “Where are you?!” texts from friends I’d promised to meet. This is a bad omen, I couldn’t help but think as I trudged along, kicking at scraps of rubbish on the pavement in tipsy annoyance. If I’m stupid enough to do this on the first night, I’ll probably be dead before graduation. And someone’s probably going to find my cards tonight and thieve my identity and join UKIP under my name or something equally distressing.

True disaster then hit. A good fifteen minutes away from my house, and now aware of the considerable time that had elapsed since we had first left pre-drinks, I realised I needed the toilet. Quite an alarming and acute realisation, actually, and I had a desperate moment of fervently wishing I were a man just so as to deal with the situation efficiently there and then. But in this instance, #ThisGirlCannot, so I started to pick up speed a little, half trotting down the hill. Of course this only worsened the situation and so, to distract myself, I started humming quite loudly. At least their house is a lot closer than mine, I told myself. Priorities were clear at that moment: pee, then purse.

I was in physical pain and humming very loudly before I finally reached familiar streets and wound my way to the cluster of roads where pre-drinks had taken place. Dozens of my friends lived in this area, I reflected, but at the start of the year nobody had directions by heart yet. And directions are not my forte anyway. Earlier, I had in fact briefly already worried that one day I would get confused between the roads and houses entirely and turn up at the wrong one.

…And just as my bladder was about to pop like an over inflated birthday balloon (probably incurring shrieks of terror in the same way), I realised this exact fate of street-confusion had befallen me. I peered at the row of houses as if through a kaleidoscope, the same black doors and identical living room windows over and over, and blinked. Confused and stranded, I hopped around the darkened street humming louder and louder – and soon admitted to myself that I had no way of identifying where they lived. And this really wasn’t about my belongings. It was about my bladder.

Then, just when I had reached the critical moment – having to decide whether to flat-out sprint for home (would I even make it?) or literally wee on someone’s door step (ah, the bright undergraduate lives we lead) – a giant caterpillar loomed in the window directly in front of me.

It was a huge caterpillar, seemingly orange-hued although unclear in the dim streetlight, standing upright. My tuneless hum trailed off. I was not frightened, per se, but rather in awe: this caterpillar was not just big, it was giant, floor to ceiling it seemed to me, with wise eyes behind glasses. Good grief, was this possible? Could a backed up bladder provoke miraculous hallucinations? Is this the old wives’ tale I was never warned of: neglect your bathroom needs for long enough and you’ll see enormous insects in spectacles?

My mouth dropped open and I stood, transfixed on the pavement, still hopping a little from foot to foot, surveying the great, shadowy beast silhouetted up against the glass. It calmly lifted its hand, waved in slow motion and then beckoned. It appeared to be speaking. What messages did caterpillars generally have for university students who need the bathroom so badly they’re getting vision impairment? As if stuck in treacle, I took a sluggish (ha) step towards it, squinting slowly as I tried to lip read through the double-glazing –

“LOUISA!” the caterpillar said, jolting me sharply from my hazy trance by rapping its knuckles on the window. “What are you doing?”

“I REALLY really need to use your toilet,” I told him straightforwardly, ignoring that he knew my name (you can’t question miracles), and the caterpillar shuffled backwards, out of sight. After a brief panic that my guardian angel had disappeared, relief struck: the front door unlocked in front of me. Holding back my tears of pain and hoping my body wasn’t about to collapse in on itself, I focused my wearied eyes.

The human-sized caterpillar was actually my human friend Oliver. He was standing upright inside a sleeping bag. “Heating’s broken and I don’t have a duvet,” he informed me solemnly as I sprinted past him in a blur of gratitude.

Afterwards, I sat down for a nap, fell off the sofa and then finally went home, but that isn’t entirely to the point. That night made me question myself (if only it had taught me to look after my valuables too. We’re still working on that).

Why was that the door in front of which I happened to stop, desolate and convinced that my time was up? Why was Oliver in his living room trying to snatch bits of phone signal at that precise moment? Why on earth is it my instinct to trust oversized larvae in the hope that they can provide me a toilet?

One lesson learnt overall: go to the toilet before you leave pre-drinks, alright? Promise me you’ll do that. Because I was blessed, certainly – but we can’t all have gigantic pre-pubescent butterflies coming to our rescue.

Fox en France Ep.11: Poutine on the Ritz

Friday 4^th – Sunday 6^th Nov

After an anticlimactic return to work after the holidays (one hour of exam supervision then being told I was no longer needed for the day), Friday meant back to Saint-Brieuc (home-from-home here. My home-from-home-from-home?), and a night in with friends, wine and some chocolate. Reward after a long, hard, sixty minute week at work. 

Joel samples the vino

Saturday was a flurry of lesson plans and so much tea I may as well have had a keg (does that work? Is that a thing? Get in touch), before we trudged out through slippery leaf-clad pavements to a food and wine festival. This was truly something special, despite our initial doubts as we entered the building; only the first stall was in view and it was full of dubious-looking kitchen equipment. “Sorry, but… Where’s the wine?” someone whispered, worried that our plans of a delightful evening out were going to be severely trampled by three hours of surveying sub-par colanders and carving knives.

But the wine was just round the corner, it turned out, and in no limited supply. Early on it dawned on us that traditional buckets in which to pour excess drink were nowhere to be found, so our fate was sealed as soon as the liquid hit our glasses. And stall-owners, rightfully guarding the Divine Quality of their produce, completely refused to serve us at all until the smallest drops of whatever we’d previously tasted were gone, so as not to disrupt the flavour. More top quality advice: you have not been berated until you’ve been berated by a small, angry, wine-selling Frenchman with a goatee ("No, drink it all!”). The group marching round together after copious glasses of wine was enough to create a scene anyway, but shortly word somehow “got out” (we were quite the celebrity buzz, within that marquee) that we were “all foreign” and stallholders couldn’t believe (or understand why) there were eight of us from across the world here to taste their wines. Then it all got rather overwhelming as tumblers and shot glasses were thrown at us from all angles by beaming stallholders: champagne, cognac, mushroom liqueur (really), passionfruit-something-or-other, cured ham and lots of cheese. Would rate the evening highly, although the stuffed wild boar on the sausage table could be considered a little much.

Genuine shots of mushroom

SO:

Clouds: If someone is friendly and convincing enough, they can quite easily convince a group of tourists to buy two bottles of their finest passionfruit-something-or-other.

Silver linings: It tasted very, very good.

Monday 7^th – Monday 14^th Nov

An entire week seems like quite a feat to write about, but some of it is predictable and has been written thousands of times already by thousands of people so it won’t take long to read and absorb:

I watched the election results on Tuesday. I watched it with American friends, and with baited breath. I do not support Donald Trump nor his views nor his actions. He won. People handed him power. It sucked.

It really really, really sucked and seemed to slow the world down a little for the next few days. This, combined with the single hour of poor-quality sleep I managed to steal that night, and the fact that I live alone and had no one to wail at in person after Wednesday, meant the end of the week felt pretty bleak. And then – call this either bad luck, or perhaps rather a very clear cut consequence of the above circumstances – two months’ worth of escaped homesickness rushed in at once and hit me with force comparative to my kitchen cupboard the other week when I left it open and then walked into it. With lessons cancelled left, right and centre (more variation than Western politics, at least) I was beyond grateful when a couple of pals pitched up on Saturday night and we repeated our wine-chocolate-film ritual with marvelous healing effects. Who knew that living alone is actually not at all peachy when you feel like the end of the world is nigh?! Someone should note this stuff down.

The rank remains of our Democrat/Republican punch bowls. I remembered I'm allergic to ("Republican") grapefruit and my lips swelled up. Omen? 

I should have hung on, though, to the buried but significant knowledge that teaching – talking to young people – can almost always perk you up and haul you out of even the deepest, bleakest wallowing session. Today’s lessons have made me laugh out loud until I couldn’t speak as the terminale class began their “Swinging Sixties” topic. After a guessing game of sixties icons (and one absolutely unmentionable attempt at pronouncing “Quant”), and the realisation that two of them had genuinely never heard of JFK, we moved on to a “Guess who?” game. I sat on a chair in the corner – I didn’t need to hover intimidatingly; how could it go wrong? – while they took turns in guessing which ‘60s icon they had been assigned on the board behind them by a peer. I settled in comfortably, feeling smugly assured that this would be the lighthearted, calming end to the day we all needed.

…Seven minutes passed. Madness descended. Hillary Clinton had been mistakenly called a man, there seemed to be doubts that Clint Eastwood was human, Vladimir Putin had been spelt “poutine” (as in the Canadian delicacy), someone had written my name on the board… I don’t know quite when it went awry. 

The moral of the story is - be prepared. One minute there’s blank silence and tentative squeaks of, “Errrrr… I am an actor?”, and the next you’re having to request if we could possibly stop making each other fascist world leaders and/or Kardashians (the original “sixties” theme completely dropped). As an awe-inspiring finale of creativity, one girl even assigned a friend his own name – cue confusion and partial philosophical meltdown at Monday’s close: “I am human?!... Attend! Attend! I am... ME?!” Good. Grief.

SO:

Clouds: A heavy, grey cloud this time, I feel, and one I can’t ignore: I am worried about the USA. 

Silver linings: Small scale remedies in the face of world-wide tragedies: thankful for friends who are at the end of a Skype or phone call when a Trump-shaped shadow is looming, and those who drove for miles to harmonise and cry over Skylar Astin, huddled under a duvet on my sofa. Try to tell me your Saturday topped that. Plus some very successful lessons, much hilarity, and some real progress in learning the names of my 120 students. ...No longer having to shout "VALENTIN!" or "MANON!" just because it's likely there will be one in the vicinity.

Calm

Fox en France Ep.10: Stick it to Le Mans

Thursday 27^th – Sunday 30^th Oct

Les womans in Le Mans #grammar

Recovery after Spain was moderately bleak, and merged into one long house-cleaning, clothes-washing ritual of four days. Riveting stuff. 

Monday 31^st Oct – 1^st Nov

The gentle pits of despair post-Spain were getting to me, so another change of scene was required: I fled to Le Mans, a nearby(ish) town for a stay with some other university friends. Yes, more of them. Who knew I had so many? It was a random choice of location based on geographical convenience between the three of us and so we had few expectations… Apart from someone telling me to “look out for the big F1 track” (they know me well, clearly; sports facilities are always my first go-to sightseeing priority!!!).  This meant we were actively impressed on arrival – possibly because of the crisp clear blue skies and the most welcome croque monsieur I’ve ever been served – but I am yet to be bored by colossal town squares full of beautiful pale buildings and friendly cafés.

The Pinterest House

And then – and then – we checked into our last-minute AirBnB choice and realised just how fortunate the entire set up was. Vincent, possibly the friendliest man I have ever met, welcomed us into his (what can only be described as) palace. I must apologise for the lengths at which I am about to describe his rooftop apartment: an impressive array of plants tumbling off shelving units, globes and a sculptures and a large map of early London spread across a wall. We had no doubt that this man was our cup of tea (notre tasse de thé?) – from the vintage mojito recipe placard behind a stash of twenty-five special edition liquor bottles, to ‘60s records lining the walls, to Jane Birkin posters and wall hangings (tastefully) propped up behind the sofa (“she is just a goddess!” he informed us). I genuinely felt like I had stepped inside the Pinterest app itself as he showed us round the kitchen – low-hanging lightbulbs on turquoise cords, and a small yellow bus that was actually a charging station. Jars of farfalle and multi-coloured candy canes lining the glass cabinet tipped us over from “woah” to a feverish “this is a potential life goal standard of home”. Vincent, we will be returning. A* in interior design for you, Glen Coco.

A slightly disturbing cold bolognaise put a dampener on the evening meal excursion – and an even more disturbing array of costume-clad French teenagers reminded us that it was in fact Halloween and this had completely passed us by. So, for the first time since I can remember, I did not dress up for, nor celebrate, Halloween in any form. We instead drank some wine, shared our most disturbing stories from our time abroad so far (wouldn’t you like to know) and went to bed. Quite early.  

A rushed panic to catch my train home resulted in an inevitable but nonetheless painful moment wherein I lost any capacity to speak French under pressure (seat number confusion, obviously). To my dismay, just before I dissolved in a pool of my own sweat in the aisle, the debacle ended with an eight-year-old asking me (with remarkable complacency for someone who looked young enough to be an extra on the Teletubbies), “Oh… You’re English?” and then translating for me the confusion of which-seat-is-mine. Not fun, very embarrassing, and not okay that such a young child was so full of intimidating sass and eye-rolls. Just because you’ve clearly been conjugating verbs since the the minute you were born. In, like, 2011. No grudges held here.

Gratuitous shots of Vincent's place (thanks Anna)

There are leaves everywhere and it’s such an autumn cliché but I’m becoming fixated with them, covering all the paths and roads in a fiery red carpet. So in a moment of healthy November delirium I stopped on my way back from the station and picked one up: it was perfectly intact and about twice the size of my head (no, really). I then stood up and realised an old lady was staring at me. My reputation continues to be on point – I think “Clumsy British Leaf Girl” suits me well, personally. Does leaf-pressing work the same way as flower-pressing? If not there is a leaf inside my teaching textbooks for 100% no reason and knowing me it’ll rot and crumble and then fall out of the pages in the middle of a lesson in three months’ time. Good luck explaining your way out of that one, Future Lou xoxo

SO:

Clouds: I want Vincent’s apartment to be my own but it isn’t and never will be, I have started to stash bits of tree paraphernalia in my apartment, and I got an accidental private translator but he’s barely out of the womb and that feels demeaning.

Silver linings: Le Mans was another idyllic area I’ve been lucky enough to see, and we booked an AirBnB palace by mistake.

Fox en France Ep.9: Bah, BAR, Black Sheep

Monday 25^th – Thursday 27^th Oct

Still not sure what it is or how we found it

This week began with a four hour coach to Barcelona, sweeping us out of one old Spanish city and into another – except this city had the fun, additional layer of Catalan. My bare-minimum Spanish suddenly seemed like native fluency in comparison to my comprehension of Catalan and as we’d left the actual Spanish speakers of our group behind in Valencia, I was withered down to a state of mild hysteria and shouting “¿Qué?” at anyone who approached me. I’d love to say I get by with a little help from my friends; in fact I get by ordering cafe con leche at every single place we stop because it’s the only thing I can say and my friends like to watch me suffer. And that’s not even Catalan.

Our hostel was great, and soon we had a recovered, fresh need for Spanish nightlife (that Enrique-and-reggaeton quota is never quite full. Once you've experienced it you need it like a drug). We were soon taken in like the weak tourists we are by a man in a pink shirt on La Rambla, with alluring promises of the magical “s” word (sangria, obviously). However, before I knew it, I was given a tequila shot, a wristband and was being herded like a small, confused sheep into a tavern (one ironically named The Black Sheep). Not long after, I found myself in a drinking game with a girl from LA and her hostel, we were led to a club like more livestock, Europop and reggaeton ensued, and I watched Matt dance to Tina Turner. Quite the evening.

this big Gaudi thing

The next day brought a stroll (crawl. We were crawling) to the Sagrada Familia, and then the market on La Rambla. Both impressive. Both, you know, kind of big. One full of cured meat and coconuts. One… Not. Thanks to a stunning recommendation from a friend, we found a backstreet tapas place for one euro per tapas that evening – but not before I had managed to get everyone lost and took the group on a slightly unnerving tour of the shifty neighbourhoods of Barca. I could pretend it was a purposeful and insightful anti-tourist exploration but my nervous laughter each time we hit yet another dimly lit street gave me away. Eventually we found the tapas restaurant and nothing mattered anymore. Tapas were worth it.

I managed to lead us astray yet again on Wednesday as we headed to El Raval – the “edgy” quarter (my words, not theirs). By (my) mistake we first walked through Chinatown instead and then accidentally skirted round the edge of the place I had meant to find instead of going through it, before finally stumbling across a record store, so I knew we’d hit the #edgy goal (you can take the students out of Leeds, but…). Then someone sold me a peanut butter doughnut and nothing mattered anymore. Doughnut was worth it (no theme here).

finally understood some Spanish :)

The last evening meant a trip to the Manchester Bar (travelling with Northerners, wasn’t I) and a relatively early night which still felt too late when I had to wake up at 9:00am for my flight home. I managed, somehow, and waved goodbye to the warm air, and the nachos, the tapas and Gaudi and jugs of sangria, the churros and high-rise buildings and city fumes and palm trees, understanding just one word in an entire sentence, hostels and tourists and pickpockets, ice creams and paella and my pals. ¡¡¡Hasta luega!!! (that could literally mean anything, I’m just guessing).

The strangest thing that really hit me, though, was when I stepped off the plane in Rennes. I smelled a bakery and saw a sign for galettes and other French words everywhere, and the cold but green, green landscapes and orange-red autumn trees. And I actually almost felt like being back in Brittany was home. How’s that for a revelation?

SO:

Clouds: I had to leave Espagna; cry with me. I speak even less Catalan than I do Spanish. And the bus I needed home from the airport doesn’t run in October (fun surprise after my flight landed). 

Silver linings: I didn’t get pickpocketed, I googled the term for Spanish speakers and it’s “hispanophone”, and I have laughed an almost unbearable amount in the past week. Thank you to the girls in Valencia for showing us round, and to Matt Stew James Josh and Johnnie in various combinations for being a reliably great-but-infuriating bunch to travel with (but call me Bindi again and it’s all over). 

Fox en France Ep.8: Seafood Paella (ella, ella, eh eh eh)

Thursday 20^th – Monday 24^th Oct

This might be a British thing, but stepping off a plane and wondering whether the heat is the plane engine or the actual climate is a beautiful moment. Getting to Valencia late at night, I was too giddy with joy to see the end of my ten-hour journey even to be annoyed when we got lost immediately on the way to the hostel. The air smelt of palm trees, sangria and the promise of trying to balance great nights out/actually sightseeing (it didn’t, it smelt of European cities, so bad sewage and cigarettes). I had that travel buzz – probably because I was constantly fretting about the fact that I am, while travelling, probably one of the easiest pickpocket targets in the world. Forgetful, easily-distracted and blessed with the attention span of a newt.

The stuff of nightmares

The first forty-eight hours, honestly, are a blur of food. I don’t know how many churros I inhaled on Friday morning but I’m ready for an official certificate of congratulations – and at some point we also tackled paella, tapas, sangria, more sangria, some more sangria, and then bookended more churros in at the end. Somewhere in amidst the ongoing feast I discovered that a Spanish exam in 2012 gets you 100% nowhere in actual Spain if you haven’t spoken it since, and so I was a helpless child in the midst of my Spanish-speaking friends (I planned to be slick while writing this and use the Spanish version of Anglophones. But all I can think of is “Spanglophones”. Spanielphones. Espagnaphonia? Just sounds like a fear of Spain). Luckily gin and tonic is almost the same in both languages, and gazing at big squares, high-ceiling markets and old buildings doesn’t require much Spanish GCSE vocabulary. The only time I actually struggled was when I headed out to the modern art gallery alone, trusted Google Maps way too much, and was too incompetent to realise I was in the wrong building. Yes, an entirely different building, no, I honestly didn’t realise, yes, I am that dense, no, I didn’t walk straight back out but instead endured a full forty minute tour because I didn’t want to be impolite. Classic. It was a large and seemingly never-ending food installation which featured everything from a mundane glass case of spatulas, to a surreal exhibit with a giant seven-eyed bull-creature and the word “tapas” everywhere. I am scarred and may be suing Google and their confusing maps.

Reunited with Millie

It didn’t take us long (two nights) to accidentally sniff out a huge group of Erasmus students from Leeds and we had one of those “such a small world” conversations that are much, much more boring

when you re-tell them, or even think about them the day after, so I’ll leave that gripping tale to the imagination. Spanish clubbing was the genuine Enrique-reggaeton-fest I’d originally imagined (but also originally berated myself for stereotyping). Cue more churros for morning-after recovery.

SO:

Clouds: I cannot in any way speak Spanish, and my stupid uni nickname came back to haunt me thanks to my travel pals.

Silver linings: My appalling lack of Spanish made me realise I actually really can speak French. And churros are absolute life.

Fox en France Ep.7: J & the Giant Beach

Week 10^th October

I write this with a slightly heavy heart, having just discovered that my flat’s electricity has failed in certain rooms. I had to shower with the door open just to let some natural light in, but then had an acute panic that the maintenance staff would choose this precise moment to do their scheduled check up and let themselves in with a master key. Thank goodness no such crisis occurred but I am a little on edge as I reflect upon the week.

It has been another marvellous blur, studded with little Inevitable Louisa What Are Even You Doing Moments. Examples from the past seven days include getting my key stuck in a classroom lock (until all thirty students waiting outside fell silent to watch me struggle) – proving you haven’t been laughed at until you have been laughed at by French teens, and walking straight into a kitchen cupboard I had briefly left open. Bump on my forehead to prove it.

not bad. so-so. average.

I had a part-time flatmate this week which was lovely and while the language barrier was moderate, we still managed to have a laugh as I hurriedly tried to explain that the twelve wine bottles on my terrace were from a party I had hosted and not in fact the messy residue of a particularly heavy night in by myself. I think he believed me.

Wednesday brought an exciting change of scene as myself and three fellow assistants passed a full day in the grown-up house & home wonderland that is IKEA. Was the thrill present because we are finally proper adults who are genuinely passionate about spatulas and potpourri? Or because we are socially-stunted language assistants from remote towns wherein the biggest shops are the local bakeries? We’ll never know, but the potpourri was nevertheless on a level of Christmas-come-early excitement (unlike the packets of tinsel which were on a level of Christmas-come-early absurdity). On the late bus ride home (yes, we really did make a whole day of it), I was the only passenger, and the sun was long, long gone. I didn’t have particular qualms about walking home from the station for all of two minutes, but after a chat with the friendliest bus driver I’ve possibly ever met (and I go to university in Yorkshire so that is perhaps saying something) I was dropped off directly outside my front door! Generosity at its best, so thanks, Monsieur Le Bus Driver.

I had astonishingly few classes this week as teacher after teacher informed me that for one reason or another I wasn’t needed (are they trying to tell me something?), so instead I had lots of time to do absolutely nothing and still feel completely shattered. IKEA clearly took it out of me. Consuming at least fourteen entire baguettes per day is the only obvious solution; I need energy.

Panorama setting well-used

Early on Saturday I hopped on yet another bus to head up to St Brieuc. Sam (the one you have to be nice to because he has a car) picked up a group of us and we headed over to Le Mont Saint-Michel. History, tides, architecture, beach, abbey, island, history, monks, stone, quicksand, views, history, stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. My thighs were more efficiently toned in a few hours in Normandy than my previous two decades of existence combined. The vast landscapes and Instagram-worthy snaps were worth the leg pain, though, and soon my pals were sick of hearing about my self-appointed “photographer” title (“look guys, sorry, but seriously how arty is this?!”). After making such a concentrated effort to BE A LOCAL while in and around work, it was refreshing to permit ourselves the liberty of complete, unhindered tourism. And it was certainly at its best: overpriced food, group selfies, long queues, panorama shots of the view, backpacks, and people actually speaking to us in English rather than French… All rather exciting, really.

The evening let us sample St Brieuc’s finest (erm) nightlife as a group of us went for drinks (“We’re in the bar by the square!” “Which square?” “The one with the um… bars?”) , and while I’m still not entirely sure why, we were kindly bought a round of drinks by some locals and then were told we spoke good French. I’ll take both the wine and the compliment.

... Just another gratuitous beach shot

Another weekend leaves me feeling absolutely shattered, but thanks to St Brieuc specialist Joel, we found a place open to buy food on Sunday and soothed our slightly fragile states. On to the next week… Not entirely sure how but I appear to be off to Spain tomorrow!

SO:

Clouds: If there was any doubt, I can confirm that showers in the dark are not fun. And if a man says “you listen me I very the English good” outside a bar, you can guarantee the following conversation is going to be utterly incomprehensible.

Silver linings: There is nothing quite like the sweet feeling of a group hangover stroll to find a perfect picnic hill on which to eat a croque monsieur. Am I in a black and white film?