Well it’s once again time for another reflection at the end of another month of my program! Now that January is over, that’s four months out of seven complete. There’s only three months left to go until the program is over, which will officially be on the 30th of April. Actually, I’m trying to get out of the very last week of the program by making up those hours, which will allow me to finish on the 9th, because of the way school holidays fall. And I’ll still get paid for the entire month of April, so win-win!
Alright, now back to January. Even though it felt like it was a long, cold, quiet month, now that I think about it, quite a lot did happen.
Kicked off the month, the year, the decade, with a coffee (for me) and ice cream (for Josh) at the very cool EGO cafe. They must have about 50 flavours of ice cream, which is all self-serve. This time Josh chose coconut and also blackberry, neither of which we rated as highly as the rosemary-honey flavour he had last time, although they were still quite nice. EGO is in Cours Julien and it’s one of our favourite cafes in Marseille.
The day after I woke up with what may very well be the worst cold of my life. Not the best way to spend the last of the school holidays but oh well. I got over it.
I went to school in January for the first time ever! It’s still so weird to me that the school year and the calendar year don’t line up, although of course it makes sense given that summer here is in the middle of the year. I remember at the start of the program, in October, a teacher was telling me how he’d been working on a project with the students “since the beginning of the year,” and I sat there wondering how on Earth he’d been able to work on just this one thing since February! LOL it took a while to click that he meant since September, the beginning of the French school year – d’oh!
We’ve definitely been thankful that we ended up in a relatively warm and sunny location. It barely rained at all and although by Perth standards it’s been cold, it has been tolerable with temperatures averaging around 13C, and sometimes getting up to 15-17C. Our weekend in Vienna just prior to Christmas really made us appreciate this aspect of Marseille because we were numb with cold up there!
January in France is the time to eat a special type of pastry called “galette des rois,” sort of like a flat disk stuffed with almonds. It’s to celebrate the Epiphany, which is when the three wise men arrived to pay their respects to the baby Jesus, or so the idea goes. We got the chance to try some when our residence provided some for a little soiree the other week.
Australia Day was a bit of a let down: I did a Google search to find out if anything was happening here, and the only thing that came up was an event at a pub. I sent messages on a Whatsapp group for local language assistants, and also invited our expat friends (all of whom had prior arrangements though). We got there all geared up for a party and to hopefully make some new friends…and the pub was empty. Bereft of almost anyone and certainly no other Australians. We each downed a pint, had a round of pool, and went home again.
Strikes have been ongoing intermittently still. The teachers are determined to win, even though you can see the strain it’s putting them under. I’m really impressed by their resilience and spirit even though things have been tough after striking for so long now. It’s not just the teachers, either: the rubbish men have also been on strike and the rubbish has been piling up on the streets:
Well, that’s it, really! A fairly quiet month of working and keeping on. In February I’ll have two weeks of school and two weeks of holiday, and we’re planning a trip to Chamonix, in the Alps! I’ll put a post or two up about how we get on so stay tuned.
Seven Months in Marseille 