Elsien's Traveblogue

It is amazing how much better your classes are when you have not been sitting on a Eurolines coach all night or slept fitfully in a grotty little hostel with five other people snoring away ...
It was inevitable, as the job in Versailles came up at the last moment and I had already booked cheap Eurostar tickets to and from Brussels ... on the wrong days for the teaching in Versailles and, unchangeable, as they were cheapies. So, it was Eurolines and hostels, and galloping between London, where I still had commitments, Brussels, where I have well-paid work and a lovely man I want to see from time to time, and the new job at the University of Versailles.
It sounds more glamorous than it is: Versailles looks like a brandnew university, with brandnew buildings in a brandnew new town: Montigny-something else. I'm sure the original Montigny is lovely! It looks a bit like a French Docklands, but without the charm of the riverside, but with a few shops and restaurants, we are in France here! I'll take my camera next week and post some pictures.
The students are in their first year of a degree in International Relations. They study Law, Economics, Sociology, Politics, History, Social Psychology and, for the international element, English is an option.
They have all 'studied' English at secondary school, most for seven years, but their understanding and communication skills are minimal, their reading and writing on the whole a little better. They know their grammar, but cannot / do not apply it when they speak. Sounds like English students learning French? Exactly!
So, I have been getting them to introduce themselves and their friends, got them to talk about their likes and dislikes, their studies , what they did last weekend and, for good measure, got them to follow the earthquake in Haiti on Internet news and got them to write / talk about it, with a lot of vocabulary help.
The best thing about the job, only one day a week, is that it is the best excuse to move to Paris for a bit. I had already booked myself a little studio in Montmartre for three weeks in February so I could study the Paris art collections at my leisure, especially the Louvre, which you just cannot do in one visit. This is to further my Masters' in Art History, a fairly theoretical course, so I have to add the actual viewing of paintings to it myself! It's my second year and it properly re-starts on Saturday. In the meantime I am living in this tiny little studio, near Place Pigalle, still too tired to get up to much, but tomorrow will be my first day of exploring the area; the Louvre can wait until Thursday. The outskirts of Paris were snowy this morning, but now it's raining, well, drizzling and I still think Pigalle looks romantic, with the lights glistening on the shiny cobblestones. What better way to enjoy yourself than with a coffee or a beer in a cafe, looking out on that!