When life gives you Le Mans...: Better Late Than Never...

In typical, lazy, student fashion I’ve been meaning to get back into this for weeks, but a lot’s happened since I got back from my Scandinavia trip! Two days after getting back from Oslo, my housemate Alicia and I endured a 16 hour Megabus trip to Barcelona to see Placebo, it was a painstakingly long trip but definitely worth the agony to be about a metre away from Brian Molko and spend a few days aimlessly walking round the Catalonian capital. Still exhausted after Scandinavia, we skipped making any real plan and opted to just wander around, visiting the extortionately priced but weirdly pretty Sagrada Familia, and enjoying some pretty decent sangria and tapas.

Once we’d made it back to Le Mans it was time to properly start work and so I stayed put for a few weeks to work out how on earth I was supposed to not be grossed out by tiny children and somehow make them learn some English words. Turns out most of them are somewhat adorable and love shouting ‘HELLO SOPHIE’ at me literally every three seconds. It’s like being a C-list celebrity, incapable of going anywhere in the schools without a small entourage, all of which are fighting to hold my hand and ask dozens of nonsensical questions. (My favourite deciding that I’m definitely a superhero for having a scaffold bar ear piercing, I’ll take that). Teaching’s going pretty well, they all seem pretty excited about learning more English, especially when I bring out episodes of Peppa Pig and glittery ‘well done’ stickers and I’ve only made them cry twice. I’ll take that as a win.

When I’m not teaching, which let’s be honest is most of the time, I like to spend my time battling with my French bank who love to throw all manner of infuriating crises my way. Turns out all roads don’t lead to Rome; they lead to Crédit Agricole Place de la République. They like to capture my bank card and then hold it captive for their three day weekend (obviously working Mondays is just too tough), then when I could finally collect it told me that they’d send me a new PIN number in 1-3 weeks seemingly by carrier pigeon and then require me getting three card replacements in four weeks because a working debit card chip is obviously just too much to ask for. I absolutely love being at the front of the checkout queue in Carrefour and then having to hang my head in shame as I walk away sans shopping after countless failed card attempts. I genuinely think a trial by combat against Gregor Clegane would be easier than dealing with the Crédit Agricole numbskulls.

After a month of discovering all that Le Mans has to offer – including our new favourite Irish pub Mulligan’s <3 – I started to get a bit restless and took a trip to Rennes for the day with my housemate Alicia. Having been cooped up in Le Mans it was excellent to wander round a new city’s Christmas market, old town and cathedral as well as paying a visit to the Musée de Bretagne and discovering an adorable three storey book shop which pained us to leave. Speaking of bookshops, the following week I took an impulsive trip to Paris to see my friend Jennifer and hang out with the ghosts of Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald in Shakespeare & Co, a rickety, Anglophone bookshop in the Latin Quarter. Equipped with a new, beautiful copy of the Hobbit and Sherlock Holmes’ Case Book we went onwards to Café les Deux Magots, the Musée D’Orsay and eventually the top of the Arc de Triomphe to take in the Parisian skyline at night. Hallelujah for free 16-25 entry!

Next up on December 12^th was my much anticipated trip back to Manchester to see Natalia Tena’s (Game of Thrones/Harry Potter) band Molotov Jukebox. It was really nice to catch up with my uni friends and be reacquainted with British cider and appropriately priced painkillers (I’m never paying €4 for ibuprofen again) and thanks very much to Natalie & Emily who let me sleep on their sofas! It was a brilliant two days in Manchester but it all passed two quickly and I was soon on the train to London where I’d eventually catch the Megabus back to Paris. I met up with my friend George in Euston station and enjoyed six hours wandering round the British Museum, the biggest Forbidden Planet (nerd heaven) I’ve ever been in and eventually the Sherlock Holmes museum where we both far too tall for the low hanging light fittings.

The following week I was up bright and early to catch the train to Charles de Gaulle to fly home for Christmas! After three months it was wonderful to be reunited with my family, friends and pets back home and Christmas was absolutely lovely, even if it did pass far too quickly. Hats off to my Mum’s ingenious idea to wrap stuffing in bacon btw. It was sad to say bye to everyone again, especially Columbus - the greatest dog ever - but it was soon time to head off to Düsseldorf to bring in the new year with my housemates. After a horrifically early flight I met them in the airport’s train station and then spent about two hours working out how to actually leave the airport. Great start. Whilst in Düsseldorf, we visited the Altstadt, walked along Königsallee, enjoyed some pretty great German food, went up the Rhine Tower (which really needs to work on its entrance and exit dealio) and spent hours trying to follow the Google Maps app to find the Wildpark before realising that we had the address for a street called Wildpark which we’d been walking up and down while despairing at the map. Awkward. When New Year’s Eve came around we headed to the Altstadt again to see what I’d been promised were some pretty decent fireworks, unaware that it was effectively a ‘bring your own fireworks’ party with hundreds of people lighting rockets out of their bare hands and any bottles they could find. Absolute nutters. But it was an experience and to be fair they were pretty good fireworks!

Now I’m back in Le Mans and am already trying to work out where I’m going to go in the next half term break in February! I’m pretty keen to speak more French this year and definitely want to travel around more of France. Since starting my year abroad I’ve been to ten new cities, so here’s hoping for many more in the New Year!

Now I’m going to watch the end of Miranda and enjoy some quality 35c noodles. Living the Sunday high life.

Bonne année! X

Sangria