Sunday, November 27, 2011

Les cliches ont la vie dure

Cliches have a hard life. This is the title of a piece in a local newspaper which proves a point I made in an earlier blogpost. This article is an American student discussing the cliches about french people and wether they are correct based on her experience living in France.

1) French people don't take showers. -It states that Americans smell better than French people probably due to the fact that the deoderant is so crappy in France compared to American brands, the french agree. This proves a point that I made in an earlier blog about the lack of proper deoderant in France. I am glad that I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion.

2) The French hate Americans- an American studying in France sees that as false and its more to do with a different in cluture

3) French girls do not play sports- The American student says that she has seen a lot of French girls playing sports but that more women do it in America

4)French people think that they are the best- The American thinks this is true, she mentions in the article that her host family did not eat tomato sauce or processed foods because in France "we only eat fresh ingrediants"- from my experience I do think French people have a tendancy to eat less processed food, ie with them always eating fresh bread and with the meat

5) The French are skinny even if they eat fatty foods- The American explains that this is true because of the quality of the food that they eat and the smaller quantities. I have noticed that I have lost some weight while being here, but I think that my splurge this weekend (Macaroons anyone?) probably halted that.

6( Every women goes topless at the beach. - This one is definatly false, while some women do go topless , there are just as many that do not.


Another observation I have made is that the French seem to be a lot more into politics than in New Zealand. It seems that there are political shows all the time, and the quality of the news is a lot better, although I do sometimes find it hard to understand. I spent a lot of today watching Friends. The dubbed voices were a bit strange but after 10 mins you get use to it. I also saw a documentary on the Crusades. That is another thing I have noticed, a lot more documentaries. In conclusion I think the quality of TV in France is higher than in NZ.

So there you have it 6 French cliches discussed and some unmasked.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A picture blog







Malta was amazing, these three photos show the highlights of the trip for me, the old churches which were amazing. The St John co Cathedral was great, and it had the picture of the beheading of St John in it. We also went to the oldest temples in the world...It was amazing to see them and to wonder at why they were there and who built them. Chris the owner of the Hostel that we stayed at said that he use to have birthday parties there, before the goverment realised how historically important they were. I also went to St Pauls catacombs which were great, its basically an undergroud grotto of caves with tombs in them...very cool

Since blogger is not being very cooperative in uploading pictures you can check them out on Facebook:)

In terms of teaching, things are going well. I have my lessons planned for tomorrow so hopefully they will go well... I will be going down to see the family tomorrow night for the weekend. No school on Friday as it is a public holiday:)