Last day of Class

I am left all alone in the class today, everyone else have left, while some decided not to come at all (except for Chang, who came for just an hour, and then left) . Instead of having French lessons as we were supposed to, Valerie, my professeur, and I, just chatted and worked on Sudoku puzzles instead. Hehe...what a way to end a session. :D

Just one more goodbye dinner tonight, and tomorrow I'll have to return my bicycle, and start packing. Bordeaux wines, here I come!

Je suis crevée

I know I have been lagging again on updating the blog....but I can't really help it with so many happenings in town. First it was the Fête de la Musique, then came the Rio Loco, and then Fête du Cinema and since this is my last week in Toulouse, there are also lots of goodbye dinners. Estoy hecha polvo!

List of movies that I watched during Fête du Cinema

1. La Colline a des Yeux (Hills Have Eyes)
2. X-Men
3. Cars
4. Scary Movie 4
5. Paris Je T'aime (Paris I Love You)
6. Volver

Except for Volver, I watched everything else in French. So proud of myself...hehe...

Anyway, I still have several posts in draft mode, will try to get it up as soon as possible, hopefully before I leave for Bordeaux this Sunday. Ah yes, I am moving again!

Mon "amour"

Je pense à toi, tu es loin de mes yeux mais près de moi des mes pensées.
(I think of you, you are far from my sight, but close to my mind)

Tu es une pierre très precieuse pour moi que je souhaite conserver pour l'éternite.
(You are a stone so precious to me that I wish to keep for eternity)

Je te remercie car je suis convainçu que tu penses à moi.
(I would like to thank you because I am convinced that you think of me)

There you go, some of the messages that I get from Gemma, the guy I met about a month ago on the streets of Paris. I never thought he was actually serious in coming down to Toulouse just to see me, but he arrived last Friday night.

He had originally wanted to come a week ago, but I managed to escape as I was supposed to have this excursion to Pyrenees, which was eventually cancelled. I could not run away this time as I had no excuse :P He asked for my help to find him a hotel, and being hospitable, I found him a cozy 2 stars hotel in the centre. On Friday, he arrived close to midnight, because he didn't know in advance that the train would take about 7 hours to reach Toulouse (and he didn't take the TGV anyway). I was glad Sachiko was with me in town while I waited for him. We went to watch the match between France-Togo then headed straight to town to meet him.

Oh well, when he arrived, I took him to the hotel where he could check-in, told him I was tired, and that we would meet next morning at 10am. He said sure, why don't u come up to my room when you arrive and give knock on the door. I told him NO, we can meet downstairs, at 10am.

Sachiko had to leave for the beach next morning, and she offered her bicycle for Gemma to use, which was very kind. I certainly prefered to have him on the bicycle than walking next to me. So Gemma and I cycled to the Canal du Midi. While we were cycling, he called me 'Mon amour, mon bébé....'. I had to explain to him again and again I am NOT his baby nor his love.... geeesshhh.... why is it so difficult for man to understand the word NO???

Anyway, to cut long story short, he offered to buy me jewellery, attempted to hold my hand, and insisted several times that I should walk next to him with my arms tucked under his and not well ahead of him. He threatened to leave the very next day if I keep rejecting him (I couldn't have been happier). He then helped returned Sachiko's bike, and then again tried his luck to see if I would let him into the house. I guess he finally got the idea that he's not getting anything from me, and walked straight to the metro station without saying a word, just a gesture to say he will call me. I never heard from him again. *phew*

Fête de la Musique

The Festival of Music is held every year on the 21st of June, which also marks the beginning of summer. I was in Carcassonne earlier during the day, but in the evening when I returned, the Fête de la Musique has started. It was just like any other working day, so the highlights began only from evening 7pm onwards.

People playing musical instruments, singing, dancing everywhere ..... partout! Whether you are a professional or an amateur, this is the day for you to show off. Find a spot that you like, then start making music... or noise .....whatever. Nobody will care, not until 2am the next morning. The Mairie of Toulouse set up a grand stage at Place du Capitole and it was almost like an open air discotheque. It was really weird, everyone was blasting their speakers really loud, and you can hear rock blasting on your left ear, and church choirs singing on the right. Then near the St. Etienne, there will be some jazz and classical music played, and lots of jamming as well near Pont Neuf. Just weird. Lots of stalls popping up like mushrooms, selling kebabs, and saucisses de Toulouse and sandwiches and beer. But the crowd was enormous! I thought I saw a stall somewhere selling saucisse, but when I tried to search for it again later, it just disappeared, camouflaged by the crowd.

On the same day was also the opening of the Rio Loco festival along the Garonne. This year's theme was Senégal, and lots of artists were invited to perform in this festival. Although everyone was busy promenading on the streets for the Fête de la Musique, the crowd at the Garonne was not small neither.

Check out the photos of Carcassonne, the Fête de la Musique and Rio Loco. (end of album)

World Cup Mania

Sachiko and Liko wanted to go watch the World Cup at the cafe today to support Japan in the match against Croatia. I thought I'd come along and joined them. After our lunch at Flunch, we settled in a small little cafe in town centre. The moment we sat down, there was this viejo verde, seated by the bar, who could not stop staring at us. Every 5-10 minutes, he would turn his head back and look at us. The match was not even interesting enough for him; if he was not staring at us, he would doze off with his head rocking back and forth a little. We didn't pay much attention to him, and left after the game ended.

Sachiko and I decided to stay at home and watched the match between Australia and Brazil, but we ended up watching the match between France and South Korea instead because I got the wrong information about the match time. The match between Australia and Brazil was already over. That shows how much interests I have for football...bleeehhh :P

Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire, SÉDUISANT?

What more could I ask for in a class? We are blessed with 2 handsome gentlemen (Steve* & Chang*) who are willing to take turns every other day to perform a table dance for all of us before the class starts. Ok, I am joking about the table dance part, but they really do climb onto the table, but to do all of us a favor...(nope, not pole dancing neither). We normally open the window on the roof to let some fresh air in, but at the same time, some of us in the class would be exposed to the risks of sunburn. These 2 nice gentlemen will climb on the table to shut the blinds, so that the ladies are well protected ;)

Today was Steve's turn to be on the table, and Florencia jokingly offered her sweater, for him to dance with :P Then later during the class, we came across a word which we did not understand, "Qu'est que ça veut dire, séduisant**??" , Valerie nicely explained, "C'est Steve sans chausseurs, avec le pull de Florencia sur la table :D" (That's Steve, without his shoes, with Florencia's sweater, on the table). And boy did that made Steve blush! ;)

*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the innocent
** séduisant = seductive

Horse on Wheels

Yesterday, 10 of us from Alliance Française Toulouse went on a cycling trip along the Canal du Midi (which starts in Toulouse, and goes all the way to the Mediteranean sea, approx 250km). It was marvelous! We started our little tour immediately after class, and then we went off-route to a nice little garden to have a picnic before continuing. We cycled about 8km before pausing for a break, then cycled a little bit more before making a retour back to the town centre. In total, we probably did about 19-20km. The cycling path was shady, not crowded, so it was really really nice. I'd probably do this again on one of the weekends with Sachiko :D

The activites organised at the school has been quite interesting. We had Soirée Gourmand last Tuesday i.e. everyone who wanted to attend had to bring a typical dish of their country. Guess what I brought? Nope, not Nasi Lemak, coz I did not have ikan bilis :( But I managed to find some sambal to make Mihun goreng! I was quite proud of myself, and would have given a score of 8 out of 10 (masuk bakul angkat sendiri....hehe)

Right before the Gourmet Evening, we had Atélier de Cuisine, to make Fondant au chocolate et amandes, yummmyyyy. Seriously we were no chefs, so, the cake probably didn't come out looking like it was supposed to, but it tasted good all the same. And we had fun! Not forgetting to mention that we had good wine to accompany it in the end :D

More photos

I thought I'd upload some of the panaromic photos that I have taken both in Paris, Versaille and Toulouse here. The rest of the photos will be in my Yahoo! album.

Place du Capitole à Toulouse


Musée du Louvre


Versailles

Pont Neuf à Toulouse

**Albums moved to http://guiri.site.shutterfly.com/ (Update: 16 May 2008)

Disorganised

Ok, the blog hasn't really been in a proper chronological order lately. I had them written offline, then posted them at different times. It should be fixed by next week, so don't be too surprised if you see a new article dated several days back. Cheers!

J'ai un velo!!!

Well....I thought I had to wait till I was in Chambéry to get a bicycle. Fortunately, NOT! My housemate, Sachiko, thought it was a good idea to rent a bicycle too, considering that we have to walk at least 25 minutes a day to school, and another 25 minutes back under the hot sun, with a temperature of 32 degrees. Of course, we could take the metro, but it's not really worth it.

Today, we finally got our rental contract done, and a bicyle to ride for a rent of 20 euros a month (or less if you rent for longer duration). It's really handy if you know how to operate a bicycle properly. We have to be quite careful in some of the areas though, coz the some of the streets are really narrow with lots of pedestrians, and quite often cars too. I guess I'll be quite an expert by the end of June, before I leave :D

Am staying with a French family, and the lady host is really nice. She is more than 60 years old, but still goes out every weekend to dance! That's the spirit! Elle est très gentile, and also a good cook, so I am really quite happy here :) My housemate Sachiko, does not speak English, which is perfect. We are all the time speaking in French. God knows if it is correct French, but at least we understand each other .... hehehe...

The French class is so far going all right. I almost missed the first class as I thought it was the Pentcote holiday. Thank goodness me and Sachiko decided to take a walk that morning, drop by the school and found out that we were supposed to attend class! I was also put into the wrong niveau on the first day. It was too easy for me, and I requested for a change. I guess it's somehow my fault coz I didn't do the pre-entry test properly :P

Oh well, I haven't taken too many photos so far, but here are some picture of sunset in Toulouse. (go to the end of the album)

Kena halau!

Oh well...I didn't exactly get shoo-ed away. The guy was quite polite although I had taken his seat. I was so glad to have found the seat no 64 without having looked carefully at the coach no. Well, I did look, but apparently it was not the coach no but the seating class :P I plonked my ass on the comfy seat, plugged on the MP3 player, ready to doze off when...

Nice guy: Excusez-moi, uhm.... c'est ma place? (Excuse me, I think this is my place?)
Me: Uhm, moi aussi? (Me too? I quickly digged out my ticket to confirm). C'est la voiture 1, place 64? (This is coach 1, seat 64?)
Nice guy: Non, c'est la voiture 2. Pardon. (He said sorry although I was the one who was mistaken? How sweet.)

I quickly left the seat....malu again.... and searched for my rightful seat. Ah, the new one is not too bad after all. View was perfect. I had a bel homme sitting diagonally opposite and facing me. He got off at Bordeaux though, which was 2 hours before me, *sigh* what a waste. NO more wash-eye :(

Bye bye Pigeons!

Am packing my bags now, getting ready to leave for Toulouse tomorrow. Except for Rana, the only girl I knew in the residence, I only have the pigeons to say bye bye to. They are outside my window every morning, going 'crrrrrruuuuu ...crrrrrruuu ..... crrrrrruuuu....' and leaving lots of souvenirs behind. :P

Back to packing, I just hate it when I have to cram everything back into the 2 bags. It's always a mystery how I managed to squeeze everything in before, then when I had to do it again, it doesn't seem to fit, and I have to dig out everything and rearrange it again. Thank goodness I won't have to do it again, at least not for another 4 weeks, when I leave for Bordeaux.

More Random "Friends"

It's so difficult to walk on the streets alone without attracting unnecessary attention. Since it was my 2nd last day in Paris, and weather was wonderful, I decided to take a walk in Paris, to see the places that I have missed. I went to see St. Sulpice (another tourist attraction because of Da Vinci Code), Jardin du Luxembourg, Jardin de Tuileries, Trocadéro, Porte de Choisy (Chinatown), and Bastille.

While walking across the garden in front of Palais de Chailliot, this guy who was sitting on the grass reading a book waived at me from far. I pretended not to notice him, but as I got closer, he waived again, and gestured for me to walk towards him. I just nodded to say hello, but did not walk to him. Enough of weird men, I thought.

Then, while I stepped out from the Bastille metro station later in the evening, I was greeted by another guy, who was also just promenading on the streets without any objective, like me. He asked if he could join me to just walk, and we chatted a bit along the way (in French, yay!). Later I found out that he was from Congo, his name was Gemma, works in Carrefour, and he has been living in Paris with his family for the past 5 years. Oh well, we ended up chatting in a bar, and yeah, he also called me a bijoux (jewellery). He then showed me a picture of his son, and mentioned that he is divorced, blah blah. He was quite nice I guess, considering that he asked me to contact him if I was in Paris again (I did tell him my boyfriend would come along). He also said that he will come visit me in Toulouse. Tengoklah camne nanti....

Stuck on a bench

This is one of the situations when one goes'La la la la laaa...' and pretended nothing happened.

While waiting for the metro this afternoon, I sat down and worked on a Sudoku puzzle. When the metro arrived, I tried to get up but was unfortunately glued to the bench. While everyone was busy boarding the metro, I was struggling to escape from the bench. Apparently the belt buckle of my trench-coat kinda got hooked between the gaps, and just would not budge. So I had to sit down, and pretended I WAS NOT planning to board the metro, and only watched as the metro left, then and attempt to free myself again. Voila! I finally got myself free after quelque minutes.

iDTGV

How nice. I have booked myself the iDTGV to Toulouse (I got first class ticket as it was the same price as the second class when I booked), and 3 days before my departure, I receive an email reminding me the time of departure, information about the weather during my arrival, and boarding time, a link to Toulouse tourism office. As I chose to have the iDZen ambiance, they also have this nice little sleeping kit on sale for 2 euros, which includes an eye mask, ear plug and a travel pillow. In case I didn't like the iDZen, I am also allowed to change to iDZap, if they have availability. 5 hours of peaceful sleep ;) Sweet.

I am a new Sudoku addict

What do you do when you only have 20 minutes, and you are stuck in a metro with nothing to do? (and you don't know enough french to read the whole paper). Well, I did Sudoku. First week I was really attentive in the metro, paying attention to each stop, so that I won't miss the station, this week I was bored. So I started working on the Sudoku, and now I am addicted. Every morning now I would make sure I get a copy of the 20 minutes so that I have something to work on in the metro. I was doing it before my class started this morning, the professor thought I was doing the french crossword (which was on the same page). Yeah, right, crosswords...with my level of French?? :P

Anyway, it's probably just a temporary addiction. Probably I'd kick the habit when I get to Toulouse. Of course, it would be nice to keep some handy sudoku websites if I am bored again with nothing else better to do :P

Walking in the Rain

Last Tuesday evening I met up with Pauline for a drink and a chatting session. It was really nice to see her again since last September in Sevilla. This afternoon we met again for lunch and a walk in the city. Unfortunately it was raining and very windy....brrrr....cold....

Then we went window shopping at Galerie La Fayette & Printemps. There was no way I could buy anything from there. It was just WAAAAYYYY to expensive. But it was a good eye opener, and a nice shelter from the rain :) After the rain, we walked on the streets again, and Pauline and I found some nice looking cows on the street and took some photos :D