Le meilleur des choix
oh dear readers, avid review fans. I hope you know how i suffer as a chart a course for you through the rocky territory of trashy novel translations.
In all fairness, from that title i should have known it would be terrible but i'd been seduced by "medecin et don juan" and it was a double copy.
I really can barely be bothered to type the words though, it wasn't so bad its good (which is what i always expect and hope for), it wasn't so bad its hilarious (which is usually what i get), its only move away from mediocrity was in its MASSIVE dullness.
However duty is duty so here is the plot in a nutshell: emotionally traumatised pr/management girl meets emotionally traumatised/rough round the edges ER doctor (see geoff - you've chosen an appropriately sexy speciality). They have sex, she gets pregnant, they get married and have babies. A snooze-fest from start to finish.
It saddens me to finish off my literature reviews with a whimper rather than a derisorily hilarious bang but c'est la vie.
In other news a mere 2 days of hospital, 3 days of nantes life in total and one long day of travel stands between me and home. And the same for marie except with a long day of hanging round and a much shorter journey.
I cannot god damn wait, skills are signed off, u-cex's are done and i'm doctor ready. But mostly i'm ready to just not be here.
We went for a day trip to cholet to see my grandma on sunday. As here town-twinning friend she was staying with said "i don't know why you've come here, its ugly and there's nothing to see" but really we quite enjoyed the not-being-in-nantes-ness of it all. So 2 more days of hospital and then on friday once packed up and rooms inspected we are taking one last trip round town on the "petit train" and then voila, fini, au revoir!
hope you've enjoyed
alex
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Thursday 13 May 2010
Update!
Just a little update on the aftermath of the Apero Géant I talked about last night...
10,000 people turned up
93 people needed on-site medical attention
57 people were hospitalised
1 person died
40 people were arrested for drink driving
30 people were arrested for other reasons
It started at 7pm and the police didn't start moving people on till 4.30 in the morning. What an insane idea. We saw a bit of news footage of it on TV today and literally it was just LOADS of people sat around on the floor in the cold drinking supermarket own brand spirits straight from the bottle. Really did not look like much fun and to be honest, a little bit trampy. Apparently it's a country-wide thing the do to celebrate this particular bank holiday but last night Nantes broke the record for the most people ever attending (joint with Montpellier). Weird weird.
Marie
xxx
10,000 people turned up
93 people needed on-site medical attention
57 people were hospitalised
1 person died
40 people were arrested for drink driving
30 people were arrested for other reasons
It started at 7pm and the police didn't start moving people on till 4.30 in the morning. What an insane idea. We saw a bit of news footage of it on TV today and literally it was just LOADS of people sat around on the floor in the cold drinking supermarket own brand spirits straight from the bottle. Really did not look like much fun and to be honest, a little bit trampy. Apparently it's a country-wide thing the do to celebrate this particular bank holiday but last night Nantes broke the record for the most people ever attending (joint with Montpellier). Weird weird.
Marie
xxx
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Nearly there!
So, I've been a bit lazy with the blog recently. I think fatigue is setting in, the end is in sight (10 more sleeps!) and I'm getting really impatient just to be back in the UK again. However I thought it only right to keep our loyal blog followers happy with a bit of an update on how I've been getting on in my current placement in Rheumatology.
To be honest, it's been really really difficult to get into the swing of things on this placement and that's not necessarily the Rheumatology department's fault. Firstly, as I mentioned above it's the final stage and in my head I've almost finished already. Secondly, it's only a three week attachment whereas all the others have been for four weeks. When you take into account that the French go bank holiday CRAZY in May, one of which is on a Thursday so the majority of people take the Friday after off work for a long weekend, and we basically have to take the last day off to sort out moving out of halls and leaving Nantes, this means the placement is potentially only 11 days long. Not long at all to really get a feel of a speciality and definitely not long to rush around trying to get any forms signed that you may or may not have left until the last minute. The final obstacle I've encountered is that all the students in the department have exams or re-sits coming up very soon which means they aren't around that much. In all my other placements I've shadowed the students for a week or so to get used to the language and how to examine the patients in French before being confident enough to work on my own. This means I've really missed having other students around to show me the ropes as the internes are often a bit busy to explain things.
Having said all that, I think if I'd done this placement earlier on it would have been a really good one. Rheumatology in France is a much bigger deal than in the UK. On my first day the chef de service said to me that in the UK we have maybe 600-700 consultant rheumatologists, compared to 2500 in France! I can't vouch for the accuracy of those figures but it certainly covers a much wider area of medicine here, dealing with many patients I think would be seen by orthopaedics at home. I've seen lots of joint injections, joint ultrasounds, DEXA scanning, and it's been good practice for interpreting X-rays.
Something else that's been occupying my brain instead of rheumatology this past week has been the election, and I had an interesting conversation with another student about it today. I mentioned that I'd been keenly following all the activities at home from Nantes and she laughed and said something about how it was typically English and we have a reputation for being very engaged and active in politics. This kind of surprised me as it wasn't something I'd ever been aware of before and I thought we usually have quite large numbers of people who don't vote? Then the student asked if I had voted and when I said yes she laughed again and said that she has never voted and doesn't really know anybody who does. It's interesting, I haven't really learned a single thing about French politics since I've been here but apparently the low numbers of voters is a real problem and (as Alex pointed out to me) isn't it strange that they would be so keen on striking over everything and anything yet not care enough to vote in their elections?
Tomorrow is one of the bank holidays I mentioned earlier (for the Ascension) and to celebrate there's a big gathering in Place Royale in town. The Facebook event was called 'Apéro Géant' and basically it just involves everybody congregating in the main square with alcohol - no entertainment arranged, no real rhyme or reason to it, just 'we've all got the day off tomorrow so let's get drunk in the street'. Last time I checked it had around 19,500 (!!!!) confirmed guests and thousands more maybes so we've decided to give it a wide berth, although we will be heading into town tomorrow morning to see what kind of havoc has been wreaked on the place!
Marie
xxx
To be honest, it's been really really difficult to get into the swing of things on this placement and that's not necessarily the Rheumatology department's fault. Firstly, as I mentioned above it's the final stage and in my head I've almost finished already. Secondly, it's only a three week attachment whereas all the others have been for four weeks. When you take into account that the French go bank holiday CRAZY in May, one of which is on a Thursday so the majority of people take the Friday after off work for a long weekend, and we basically have to take the last day off to sort out moving out of halls and leaving Nantes, this means the placement is potentially only 11 days long. Not long at all to really get a feel of a speciality and definitely not long to rush around trying to get any forms signed that you may or may not have left until the last minute. The final obstacle I've encountered is that all the students in the department have exams or re-sits coming up very soon which means they aren't around that much. In all my other placements I've shadowed the students for a week or so to get used to the language and how to examine the patients in French before being confident enough to work on my own. This means I've really missed having other students around to show me the ropes as the internes are often a bit busy to explain things.
Having said all that, I think if I'd done this placement earlier on it would have been a really good one. Rheumatology in France is a much bigger deal than in the UK. On my first day the chef de service said to me that in the UK we have maybe 600-700 consultant rheumatologists, compared to 2500 in France! I can't vouch for the accuracy of those figures but it certainly covers a much wider area of medicine here, dealing with many patients I think would be seen by orthopaedics at home. I've seen lots of joint injections, joint ultrasounds, DEXA scanning, and it's been good practice for interpreting X-rays.
Something else that's been occupying my brain instead of rheumatology this past week has been the election, and I had an interesting conversation with another student about it today. I mentioned that I'd been keenly following all the activities at home from Nantes and she laughed and said something about how it was typically English and we have a reputation for being very engaged and active in politics. This kind of surprised me as it wasn't something I'd ever been aware of before and I thought we usually have quite large numbers of people who don't vote? Then the student asked if I had voted and when I said yes she laughed again and said that she has never voted and doesn't really know anybody who does. It's interesting, I haven't really learned a single thing about French politics since I've been here but apparently the low numbers of voters is a real problem and (as Alex pointed out to me) isn't it strange that they would be so keen on striking over everything and anything yet not care enough to vote in their elections?
Tomorrow is one of the bank holidays I mentioned earlier (for the Ascension) and to celebrate there's a big gathering in Place Royale in town. The Facebook event was called 'Apéro Géant' and basically it just involves everybody congregating in the main square with alcohol - no entertainment arranged, no real rhyme or reason to it, just 'we've all got the day off tomorrow so let's get drunk in the street'. Last time I checked it had around 19,500 (!!!!) confirmed guests and thousands more maybes so we've decided to give it a wide berth, although we will be heading into town tomorrow morning to see what kind of havoc has been wreaked on the place!
Marie
xxx
Thursday 6 May 2010
Literature review part ?? (how many of these things have i read now) + lady bits en francais
well friends,
after a few weeks of reading some proper books i felt i couldn't leave you any longer without another review of some fantastic french literature.
This week i put myself through the amusingly titled "medecin et don juan" (rhyming, nice) which translates basically as "doctor and man-whore" (much better than the actual english title of "the play-boy doctors surprise proposal")
Our heroine is an irish ginge obstetrician called Caitlin and our hero is the dazzlingly be-muscled Andrew - a paediatrician. Already we are learning - fellow medics, pick your careers wisely - babies = sexy, old people = not so sexy.
Caitlin has moved from ireland to australia (lesson 2: australia = sexy, ireland = not so sexy) to be near her breast cancer-bestricken sister and there has to get immediately rescued from the water by the family's usefully beefy friend Andrew.
Well it's fair enough i suppose, what girl can resist a man who says her life? Caitlin is casting andrew lusty looks even while she's still coughing up the salt water.
There follows much emotive baby related nonsense at the hospital, and i know that i shouldn't bother questioning the medicine in a mills and boon but really, I'm pretty sure (and the oxford handbook agrees with me) that rather than just standing around having passionate discussions about whether to deliver a pre-eclamptic woman they might want to try a bit of methyldopa on her first.
Anyway, Caitlin and Andrew get round to doing the nasty ( no description though god damn it, when am i going to get to learn the french for velvet over steel and other such essential phrases?) and she instantly decides she's in love with him. But then - disaster strikes! It turns out that she's not his type because she'd like to keep working after having kids and he believes a woman's place in in the home, who'd have thought, this being the 21st century and all?
Disaster strikes a second time when it turns out that caitlin is a) pregnant and b) might have breast cancer (i leave it you to decide which is worse).
Now here is where my real beef with this pile of tripe lies, i know everyone has got their own opinion about abortion but i don't read trashy novels like this to have someones pro-life agenda shoved down my throat. When Andrew finds out Caitlin is considering not keeping the baby he claims he "didn't think she was the kind of woman to abort a pregnancy just for sake of personal convenience". I'm surprised the author restrained herself from having Andrew call Caitlin a baby murdering devil bitch. I think finding yourself knocked up by some pre-historic thinking nobhead who you barely know is a good enough reason for a termination as any.
But of course, we're not in the real world and it turns out that Caitlin doesn't have cancer (shame)and falling in love has made Andrew think that maybe she can keep working after they have kids, (i know, how generous of him) so they just go an live happily ever after.
Not a fan, not a fan. still, i've got one more to go and 2 weeks left in France so fingers crossed the next one doesn't annoy me so much or i might have to start reading proper books all the time!
In the meantime i've started obs and gynae, and to be honest, not a fan of that either. I could partly be that the end is in sight now and therefore my enthusiasm (which has never been that high) is at an all time low. I was flabbergasted and horrified to be handed a sheet detailing the 5000 words, 20 reference report i'm supposed to write during my remaining 3 weeks here. Well, I can tell you, and i did tell them, that that is not happening and luckily they were alright about it.
It's somewhat frustrating, after having got to grips with most of the medical abbreviations to be in a new speciality where i suddenly don't know most of them again, and I've been on the high risk pregnancy unit which is just not that interesting although it should be.
I've had one day in outpatients which was a bit scary because i just got thrown into a room to take histories alone but doing the examinations with the doctor was quite good practise. That said - going to a gynaecologist in france - traumatic! The poor women are made to get completely starkers, have their breasts and "downstairs bits" examined with no sheet or gown or anything AND, the doctor was doing "touches vaginales" with only one hand gloved and no lube. (Now if you're reading this and don't see the horror in that sentence then don't think about it, cherish your ignorance.) and then just as a final insult they have to get weighed whilst completely starkers, i'm suprised more of them don't leave sobbing.
I'm doing surgery next week and will hopefully get to go to labour ward so if you're not too horrified/nauseated/bored by everything i've written today then i'll write about that before i leave Nantes for good (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)
bisous alex
after a few weeks of reading some proper books i felt i couldn't leave you any longer without another review of some fantastic french literature.
This week i put myself through the amusingly titled "medecin et don juan" (rhyming, nice) which translates basically as "doctor and man-whore" (much better than the actual english title of "the play-boy doctors surprise proposal")
Our heroine is an irish ginge obstetrician called Caitlin and our hero is the dazzlingly be-muscled Andrew - a paediatrician. Already we are learning - fellow medics, pick your careers wisely - babies = sexy, old people = not so sexy.
Caitlin has moved from ireland to australia (lesson 2: australia = sexy, ireland = not so sexy) to be near her breast cancer-bestricken sister and there has to get immediately rescued from the water by the family's usefully beefy friend Andrew.
Well it's fair enough i suppose, what girl can resist a man who says her life? Caitlin is casting andrew lusty looks even while she's still coughing up the salt water.
There follows much emotive baby related nonsense at the hospital, and i know that i shouldn't bother questioning the medicine in a mills and boon but really, I'm pretty sure (and the oxford handbook agrees with me) that rather than just standing around having passionate discussions about whether to deliver a pre-eclamptic woman they might want to try a bit of methyldopa on her first.
Anyway, Caitlin and Andrew get round to doing the nasty ( no description though god damn it, when am i going to get to learn the french for velvet over steel and other such essential phrases?) and she instantly decides she's in love with him. But then - disaster strikes! It turns out that she's not his type because she'd like to keep working after having kids and he believes a woman's place in in the home, who'd have thought, this being the 21st century and all?
Disaster strikes a second time when it turns out that caitlin is a) pregnant and b) might have breast cancer (i leave it you to decide which is worse).
Now here is where my real beef with this pile of tripe lies, i know everyone has got their own opinion about abortion but i don't read trashy novels like this to have someones pro-life agenda shoved down my throat. When Andrew finds out Caitlin is considering not keeping the baby he claims he "didn't think she was the kind of woman to abort a pregnancy just for sake of personal convenience". I'm surprised the author restrained herself from having Andrew call Caitlin a baby murdering devil bitch. I think finding yourself knocked up by some pre-historic thinking nobhead who you barely know is a good enough reason for a termination as any.
But of course, we're not in the real world and it turns out that Caitlin doesn't have cancer (shame)and falling in love has made Andrew think that maybe she can keep working after they have kids, (i know, how generous of him) so they just go an live happily ever after.
Not a fan, not a fan. still, i've got one more to go and 2 weeks left in France so fingers crossed the next one doesn't annoy me so much or i might have to start reading proper books all the time!
In the meantime i've started obs and gynae, and to be honest, not a fan of that either. I could partly be that the end is in sight now and therefore my enthusiasm (which has never been that high) is at an all time low. I was flabbergasted and horrified to be handed a sheet detailing the 5000 words, 20 reference report i'm supposed to write during my remaining 3 weeks here. Well, I can tell you, and i did tell them, that that is not happening and luckily they were alright about it.
It's somewhat frustrating, after having got to grips with most of the medical abbreviations to be in a new speciality where i suddenly don't know most of them again, and I've been on the high risk pregnancy unit which is just not that interesting although it should be.
I've had one day in outpatients which was a bit scary because i just got thrown into a room to take histories alone but doing the examinations with the doctor was quite good practise. That said - going to a gynaecologist in france - traumatic! The poor women are made to get completely starkers, have their breasts and "downstairs bits" examined with no sheet or gown or anything AND, the doctor was doing "touches vaginales" with only one hand gloved and no lube. (Now if you're reading this and don't see the horror in that sentence then don't think about it, cherish your ignorance.) and then just as a final insult they have to get weighed whilst completely starkers, i'm suprised more of them don't leave sobbing.
I'm doing surgery next week and will hopefully get to go to labour ward so if you're not too horrified/nauseated/bored by everything i've written today then i'll write about that before i leave Nantes for good (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!)
bisous alex
Sunday 2 May 2010
May Day Francais styleee
salut mes amis,
this week was may day which in France is known as the jour de travail, it's like the big holiday in france so everything was shut - all the museums and that and there was no public transport at all so me and marie had to walk all the way into town to meet her parents,
when we got there we got to do some traditional may day activities though, including:
the giving of lily of the valley for good luck
nordic walking
and of course - protesting!
Sunday we took the boat over the river to the little fishing village of trentemoult, which is pretty but not much else, and had some delicious crepes lunch and then back over to place royale for yet more delicious ice cream - i'm getting as much of that in as i can.
We're down to our final 3 weeks now, I'm starting obs and gynae tomorrow at the horrendous hour of 8am, and marie starts rheumatology on tuesday have sneakily got a day off by "forgetting" there's no monday bank holiday here!
so i'm off to learn the french words for lady bits,
lots of love, alex
this week was may day which in France is known as the jour de travail, it's like the big holiday in france so everything was shut - all the museums and that and there was no public transport at all so me and marie had to walk all the way into town to meet her parents,
when we got there we got to do some traditional may day activities though, including:
the giving of lily of the valley for good luck
nordic walking
and of course - protesting!
Sunday we took the boat over the river to the little fishing village of trentemoult, which is pretty but not much else, and had some delicious crepes lunch and then back over to place royale for yet more delicious ice cream - i'm getting as much of that in as i can.
We're down to our final 3 weeks now, I'm starting obs and gynae tomorrow at the horrendous hour of 8am, and marie starts rheumatology on tuesday have sneakily got a day off by "forgetting" there's no monday bank holiday here!
so i'm off to learn the french words for lady bits,
lots of love, alex
Sunday 25 April 2010
Boats, floats and er....kidneys
salut mes amis.
It's been a busy week and a busy weekend. I returned back to the renal ward this week to try and be useful to the externes in the week before their exams, i really don't like that ward, it just constantly feels like a waste of my time. But on thursday I got to go and see a pre-transplant consultation and then friday see the nephrectomy and transplant. The nephrectomy was the craziest operation I've ever seen, they like made an incision, put in this weird port thing and then the surgeon put his arm in and was wriggling it around inside this womens abdomen, i half thought he was going to pull the kidney out there and then and go "ta daa". He did not. But he did still do the whole operation with his hand inside this womens abdomen, it was kinda cool. Then he did his victory route taking the removed and cleaned up kidney round to the other operating room where they were ready waiting for the kidney to go in.
Am spending next week mostly on dialysis i think, and I might try to go to a few more outpatients clinics. Am quite looking forwards to renal being over and starting obs and gynae though really.
Friday was the official one month countdown to our last day of placement here in Nantes, it's gone really quickly and 1 month seems like a nice manageable amount of time left. We celebrated on friday night with burgers (real fake cheese and everything) and a bottle of fizz mmmmmm.
Saturday me, marie, brittany and karen (who are american) and canadian chris who we went to the beach with last week did one of the things i've been wanting to do ever since we got here - we hired a boat and went boating up the Erdre, I call it 5 english speakers go boating up a french river.
That said, there was no bags of lettuce, we didn't happen across any smugglers or really have any adventures at all. There was ginger beer though and an amazing picnic including lovely fresh bread and sun-melted camembert and strawberries. It was a gorgeous day and really lovely getting out of town on the river and chateau-spotting as we got out into the countryside. Then we came back and in the evening went down to the night carnaval. we got a look at the line up of floats as we were walking down and .... they were EXACTLY the same as last week, with the exception of the odd dancing group added, and they'd taken the bikini top off the float with the health minister (tee hee). It was still raelly good fun though and we got into a massive confetti fight with this group of little boys - there is SO much confetti on my floor this morning. We finished the night with some churos or chi chi - these like fried dough sticks, greasy but good - i've never had them before.
So, one more week of renal for me, and neuro for me and then next weekend marie's parents are coming which I'm really looking forwards to. I'll add some photos shortly and I promise I'll try and find myself another trashy romance novel tihs week, i've been having a bit of a break reading proper books.
bisous
alex
It's been a busy week and a busy weekend. I returned back to the renal ward this week to try and be useful to the externes in the week before their exams, i really don't like that ward, it just constantly feels like a waste of my time. But on thursday I got to go and see a pre-transplant consultation and then friday see the nephrectomy and transplant. The nephrectomy was the craziest operation I've ever seen, they like made an incision, put in this weird port thing and then the surgeon put his arm in and was wriggling it around inside this womens abdomen, i half thought he was going to pull the kidney out there and then and go "ta daa". He did not. But he did still do the whole operation with his hand inside this womens abdomen, it was kinda cool. Then he did his victory route taking the removed and cleaned up kidney round to the other operating room where they were ready waiting for the kidney to go in.
Am spending next week mostly on dialysis i think, and I might try to go to a few more outpatients clinics. Am quite looking forwards to renal being over and starting obs and gynae though really.
Friday was the official one month countdown to our last day of placement here in Nantes, it's gone really quickly and 1 month seems like a nice manageable amount of time left. We celebrated on friday night with burgers (real fake cheese and everything) and a bottle of fizz mmmmmm.
Saturday me, marie, brittany and karen (who are american) and canadian chris who we went to the beach with last week did one of the things i've been wanting to do ever since we got here - we hired a boat and went boating up the Erdre, I call it 5 english speakers go boating up a french river.
That said, there was no bags of lettuce, we didn't happen across any smugglers or really have any adventures at all. There was ginger beer though and an amazing picnic including lovely fresh bread and sun-melted camembert and strawberries. It was a gorgeous day and really lovely getting out of town on the river and chateau-spotting as we got out into the countryside. Then we came back and in the evening went down to the night carnaval. we got a look at the line up of floats as we were walking down and .... they were EXACTLY the same as last week, with the exception of the odd dancing group added, and they'd taken the bikini top off the float with the health minister (tee hee). It was still raelly good fun though and we got into a massive confetti fight with this group of little boys - there is SO much confetti on my floor this morning. We finished the night with some churos or chi chi - these like fried dough sticks, greasy but good - i've never had them before.
So, one more week of renal for me, and neuro for me and then next weekend marie's parents are coming which I'm really looking forwards to. I'll add some photos shortly and I promise I'll try and find myself another trashy romance novel tihs week, i've been having a bit of a break reading proper books.
bisous
alex
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Franglais anecdote
A classic Franglais conversation was had on the ward today. I was sitting with the two externes reading through the notes of one of the new patients and we read that she had "phenomene de 'Lime Scheckinn'". None of us knew what in the world this could be, my best guess was that it must be some rare syndrome named after the people who discovered it. We looked it up & it wasn't in the Oxford Handbook or their French textbooks. So, when the interne arrived, we decided to ask him and it went something like this:
EXTERNE: What is phenomene de Lime Scheckinn?
INTERNE: Ahhh yes that. It's actually an English neurological term, Marie, you must know it?
ME: What???! No way, that is definitely not English. German maybe? (Marie stares at piece of paper in confusion)
INTERNE Let me see...oh wait, I think it's spelt wrong (interne takes piece of paper and corrects the sentence so it now reads 'Lim Schekin')
ME: (continuing to look blank) I really don't know...it's not a term I've ever come across before, maybe it's named after an English person or something? I guess it must be something quite rare?
INTERNE: No, it's actually quite common! You know, it's when the patient goes like this (interne flails his arms around madly), Leeeeeem Shekkin!
MARIE: Oh my god. LIMB SHAKING!
Cue much laughter all round and several minutes of everyone trying to copy my accent and pronounce it correctly. Hilarious!
Marie
xxx
EXTERNE: What is phenomene de Lime Scheckinn?
INTERNE: Ahhh yes that. It's actually an English neurological term, Marie, you must know it?
ME: What???! No way, that is definitely not English. German maybe? (Marie stares at piece of paper in confusion)
INTERNE Let me see...oh wait, I think it's spelt wrong (interne takes piece of paper and corrects the sentence so it now reads 'Lim Schekin')
ME: (continuing to look blank) I really don't know...it's not a term I've ever come across before, maybe it's named after an English person or something? I guess it must be something quite rare?
INTERNE: No, it's actually quite common! You know, it's when the patient goes like this (interne flails his arms around madly), Leeeeeem Shekkin!
MARIE: Oh my god. LIMB SHAKING!
Cue much laughter all round and several minutes of everyone trying to copy my accent and pronounce it correctly. Hilarious!
Marie
xxx
Friday 16 April 2010
Acts of God
So this week we have been visited by The McNeils! Here is a little photo of Emma & Alex enjoying Nantes on their first day here, although by the end of the trip they were looking a little less smiley...
It was a shame that Alex & I had to be in hospital for a lot of their trip what with it being mid-week, but we caught up when we could for drinks and a bit of shopping, and a trip to the planetarium which is one of the tourist attractions I hadn't even heard of before this week. It was a good one though and the man giving the presentation gave a bit of a shout out to all the Anglais in the audience, and made a point of talking about 'Le Big Dippeurrr' a lot (in French it's called Le Casserole! It does like quite like a saucepan).
Anyway, there was drama last night when we realised that their flight home for this morning was cancelled because of the volcanic cloud! We spent a lot of time in our favourite Novotel trying to research other ways to get back to England but it was kind of crazy, there were clearly loads of other people trying to do the same thing. Eurostar had elevated their prices to unbelievable levels:
Luckily we managed to get them on a ferry from St Malo tomorrow morning, so this afternoon we said our goodbyes and saw them off on the train. Disaster averted.
Tomorrow we're FINALLY going to the beach! And this weekend is the big Carnival de Nantes, so expect some more exciting photos soon.
Marie
xxx
It was a shame that Alex & I had to be in hospital for a lot of their trip what with it being mid-week, but we caught up when we could for drinks and a bit of shopping, and a trip to the planetarium which is one of the tourist attractions I hadn't even heard of before this week. It was a good one though and the man giving the presentation gave a bit of a shout out to all the Anglais in the audience, and made a point of talking about 'Le Big Dippeurrr' a lot (in French it's called Le Casserole! It does like quite like a saucepan).
Anyway, there was drama last night when we realised that their flight home for this morning was cancelled because of the volcanic cloud! We spent a lot of time in our favourite Novotel trying to research other ways to get back to England but it was kind of crazy, there were clearly loads of other people trying to do the same thing. Eurostar had elevated their prices to unbelievable levels:
Luckily we managed to get them on a ferry from St Malo tomorrow morning, so this afternoon we said our goodbyes and saw them off on the train. Disaster averted.
Tomorrow we're FINALLY going to the beach! And this weekend is the big Carnival de Nantes, so expect some more exciting photos soon.
Marie
xxx
Sunday 11 April 2010
Second half
I had expected that after going home for Easter I'd have a really miserable week back in Nantes and just want to go home again but fortunately this has not been the case - in fact it's been one of the best weeks I've had here!
The first thing I have been loving this week is the weather, it's been lovely and sunny all week and the city really seems to have come to life as a result. There are loads of people out boating on the river and all the cafés and bars are packed with people relaxing outside. On Tuesday evening it was warm enough for me to go for a candlelit riverside picnic with some friends from the Café Anglais which was really nice, although I was a bit worried the circling bats had their eye on our sandwiches (you all know my thoughts about flying creatures). After finishing in hospital on Friday we took the train over to Angers, where Alex's parents had been staying in a beautiful gite - we spent the evening with them over some delicious food and familiarised ourselves with a selection of the local wines before spending Saturday wandering around Angers itself in the sunshine. We had a look round the old town, a mooch around the shops (discovering the French equivalent of the pound shop! I knew they must exist!), and it was even hot enough to have a little sunbathe in the jardin at the Musée de Beaux-Arts. I felt like I was on holiday!
The second thing that's been making me feel all cheery this week is that I've started a new placement in neurology and so far it's turning out really well. Once more, the Chef has provided me with my own timetable so I have lots of interesting clinics coming up rather than just sitting around the ward watching the externes do paperwork. Saying that, the externes are really friendly and have made a real effort to include me and get me to help out. The interne is enthusiastic too and it looks like I might get some lumbar punctures done over the next few weeks which will be good experience although scary. The only drawback is that the placement is at Hopital Laennec (in Saint-Herblain, just under an hour commute away - where Alex did pneumologie) so it's a bit of a faff to get there and back. A tram and two buses each way. It's also quite out of the way from anywhere so there's really not much to do with that 2 hour lunch break, although it's been nice this week to sit out and read my book in the sunshine.
Yesterday there was an EXTREMELY exciting development in our Nantais lives: we finally managed to track down a pot of hummous! Now over the past 10 weeks we have searched this town high and low to get hold of the stuff. Even a small Greek/Turkish grocer's didn't have it. But yesterday when we went over to the fish counter to get ourselves some moules for dinner, lo and behold there was the hummous, nestled in between a display of sardines and a bottle of fish consommé. Why did we never think of looking there?!
We are more than halfway through now, 10 weeks down and 6 to go, and I'm feeling pretty positive about the next 6 weeks. I'm still looking forward to being home again but we have quite a lot of fun things planned and if the weather holds out we'll hopefully be able to experience the best of Nantes (and obviously work very hard and learn lots of medicine too)
Marie
xxx
Thursday 1 April 2010
I'm freeeeeeee!
Gastro c'est fini mes cheres. I have 6 whole days of lovely freedom with my parents to look forwards to, I'm so excited!
My last day of gastro already, it's gone pretty quickly. Having been prepared for the horrendous hours I've been quite resigned to them andmost days we have at least been quite busy so I've found myself surprised that it's 7pm and time to go home. The worst is when it's not busy and you have to wait around for the contre-visite which is just a waste of time because they don't make any effort to include you in it. It's definitely a good placement for practising abdominal exams and you will know acute and chronic pancreatitis like the back of your hand by the end of the placement. There were also some quite interesting complicated cases including an adult with Henoch-Schonlein purpura, some crazy non-sensical Crohns patients. The chef de service was always very nice and impressed by the fact that we're English students studying here and the interne was also very friendly. so all in all, though hard work gastro hasn't been a bad placement really.
Now, onto more important matters:
Literature reviews with Alex, part 4: Les doutes d'une amoureuse – the doubts of a lover lady
Oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes reader, I just don't think this company quality assures its publications.
Les doutes d'une amoureuse was certainly a mixed bag, set in Massachusetts ( I was going to say glamorous Massachussetts but I just can't bring myself type the words) our heroine, Isobel, is a social worker and our hero is Neil (again, Neil – not a name for a romantic hero) some kind of police/investigator type thing.
Starting on a positive note I'd have to say that, actually this book was probably more deserving of the title “intrigue at the hospital” then that book. Neil Kane is investigating anonymous allegations of insurance fraud at the hospital and Isobel becomes a suspect, although by that point Neil doesn't believe it because Isobel's just so lovely it couldn't possibly be her.
Now as a very wise woman by the name of Rosie Moylan once said: mild emotional trauma + fabulous accessories = rom-com magic, and I feel the same applies to trashy romance novels.
The back story to Isobel and Neil's tentative, and frankly massively dull romance is that Isobel is living with her grumpy aged father and Neil is messed up from the death of his younger brother. Isobel doesn't have emotional trauma, she just has principles (eugh!) and there's certainly no shiny accessories in sight. What were they thinking? Ageing cantankerous parents do not make for a steamy romance novel (take note mum and dad). Now for Neil it turns out that his little brother died when he was off fishing alone because young Neil had gone to hang out with some friends and some girls – while his brother was drowning Neil (if I read it right) was busy “becoming a man”. Waste of a quality storyline there. I swear if it was a female character that had happened to she'd literally never have had sex again, whereas Neil has even managed to get married. What that says about this genre of fiction you'll just have to decide for yourself.
But Oh Mon Dieu they were both just so dull, I swear it was like reading Little Women, you know where everyone's just so perfect and lovely and kind to animals that you're just itching for one of them to be discovered snorting crack or buggering the stable boy or whipping a kitten in the next chapter. But no instead, they just uncover the culprit behind the false letters (and even he's just doing it to help his demented mother – I mean really, can't anyone be selfish in this book? It's making me yearn for the petty self-centred whining of the last couple) and get married. Yawn. Fail.
So Marie is back in lovely Manchester and I'm off to Angers for a few days with my parents but I promise to try and find another trashy novel to read and review for you (the things i put myself through!)
xxxxx Alex
My last day of gastro already, it's gone pretty quickly. Having been prepared for the horrendous hours I've been quite resigned to them andmost days we have at least been quite busy so I've found myself surprised that it's 7pm and time to go home. The worst is when it's not busy and you have to wait around for the contre-visite which is just a waste of time because they don't make any effort to include you in it. It's definitely a good placement for practising abdominal exams and you will know acute and chronic pancreatitis like the back of your hand by the end of the placement. There were also some quite interesting complicated cases including an adult with Henoch-Schonlein purpura, some crazy non-sensical Crohns patients. The chef de service was always very nice and impressed by the fact that we're English students studying here and the interne was also very friendly. so all in all, though hard work gastro hasn't been a bad placement really.
Now, onto more important matters:
Literature reviews with Alex, part 4: Les doutes d'une amoureuse – the doubts of a lover lady
Oh dear, oh dear. Sometimes reader, I just don't think this company quality assures its publications.
Les doutes d'une amoureuse was certainly a mixed bag, set in Massachusetts ( I was going to say glamorous Massachussetts but I just can't bring myself type the words) our heroine, Isobel, is a social worker and our hero is Neil (again, Neil – not a name for a romantic hero) some kind of police/investigator type thing.
Starting on a positive note I'd have to say that, actually this book was probably more deserving of the title “intrigue at the hospital” then that book. Neil Kane is investigating anonymous allegations of insurance fraud at the hospital and Isobel becomes a suspect, although by that point Neil doesn't believe it because Isobel's just so lovely it couldn't possibly be her.
Now as a very wise woman by the name of Rosie Moylan once said: mild emotional trauma + fabulous accessories = rom-com magic, and I feel the same applies to trashy romance novels.
The back story to Isobel and Neil's tentative, and frankly massively dull romance is that Isobel is living with her grumpy aged father and Neil is messed up from the death of his younger brother. Isobel doesn't have emotional trauma, she just has principles (eugh!) and there's certainly no shiny accessories in sight. What were they thinking? Ageing cantankerous parents do not make for a steamy romance novel (take note mum and dad). Now for Neil it turns out that his little brother died when he was off fishing alone because young Neil had gone to hang out with some friends and some girls – while his brother was drowning Neil (if I read it right) was busy “becoming a man”. Waste of a quality storyline there. I swear if it was a female character that had happened to she'd literally never have had sex again, whereas Neil has even managed to get married. What that says about this genre of fiction you'll just have to decide for yourself.
But Oh Mon Dieu they were both just so dull, I swear it was like reading Little Women, you know where everyone's just so perfect and lovely and kind to animals that you're just itching for one of them to be discovered snorting crack or buggering the stable boy or whipping a kitten in the next chapter. But no instead, they just uncover the culprit behind the false letters (and even he's just doing it to help his demented mother – I mean really, can't anyone be selfish in this book? It's making me yearn for the petty self-centred whining of the last couple) and get married. Yawn. Fail.
So Marie is back in lovely Manchester and I'm off to Angers for a few days with my parents but I promise to try and find another trashy novel to read and review for you (the things i put myself through!)
xxxxx Alex
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Concrete proof (if any was needed) that the French can and will find ANYTHING to have a demonstration about: today on my way to hospital I passed a group of people standing in front of a big hand-drawn placard that said 'VELOS & CHOCOLAT' (BICYCLES AND CHOCOLATE). Whether their key message was of the 'down with bicycles and chocolate' variety or more like 'more cycling and chocolate please!' wasn't clear. I think maybe there's a set of flashcards with random words on in every house that can be shuffled through at random if people can't decide what to be angry at that day.
Marie
xxx
Marie
xxx
Tuesday 30 March 2010
Dermatology
Since it's my last day of the placement tomorrow I'm going to do another little mini-review of my time in the Dermatology department here in case anybody is interested but also because it all helps when it comes to writing our report at the end of May!
I've really enjoyed this placement much more than Gastro and that's mainly due to the Chef who takes charge of the Erasmus students here and organises our timetable. For the first week of the placement I spent all my time on the ward with the externes (like in gastro, doing the visite, helping them with odd jobs here and there and helping with the new patients) but then the following three weeks were spent in the 'consults' - outpatient clinics to you and I. This was good as I spent much less of my time sitting around while feeling like a bit of a spare part while everybody did administrative tasks around me, and much more of my time learning interesting medical facts and looking at rashes. The timetable was really flexible - I had way more free time than my last placement yet somehow felt like I learned a lot more and had a more varied experience of the service.
Dermatology in France is quite similar to the UK but there are a few notable differences. Firstly, on the 20-bed ward I'd say at least half of the patients at any given time were in with leg ulcers (dermatologists don't generally deal with ulcers in the UK). More bizarrely, I found out that in France dermatologists also take charge of most cases of syphilis, whether or not the patients have skin symptoms! It's a bit of a hotch potch. In addition, I kept noticing drugs being used in funny ways that I've never heard of before - for example topical Spironolactone?! (non-medics: in England, spironolactone is a drug that you take as a tablet and it makes you pee more. In France, they put the same drug in a cream and it cures acne. I never would have guessed).
The only drawback of this 'stage' was the number of students attatched to the department. It's a big service, but there were 10 externes, 2 Erasmus students and at least 6 third year students who had to come in in the mornings. AND often we had pharmacy students sitting in on the consultations too - apparently it's a requirement of their studies here. Now most of the externes were often busy on the ward or in Hopital du jour, but even with 2 or three clinics running alongside each other things still got a little crowded and there were some I would have liked to go to but didn't get the chance.
But all in all, c'etait super!
Not much else to report for now except that I have been shut away in bed this weekend with a terrible French disease that I am convinced I caught at our first adventure to the public swimming baths last Wednesday. That'll teach us to try and be healthy. I've recovered enough to go ice skating tonight though, hopefully that will prove to be a far less germ-riddled activity. And only two more days until I break this Nantes cabin fever that's setting in and go home for Easter weekend! Can't wait!
Marie
xxx
I've really enjoyed this placement much more than Gastro and that's mainly due to the Chef who takes charge of the Erasmus students here and organises our timetable. For the first week of the placement I spent all my time on the ward with the externes (like in gastro, doing the visite, helping them with odd jobs here and there and helping with the new patients) but then the following three weeks were spent in the 'consults' - outpatient clinics to you and I. This was good as I spent much less of my time sitting around while feeling like a bit of a spare part while everybody did administrative tasks around me, and much more of my time learning interesting medical facts and looking at rashes. The timetable was really flexible - I had way more free time than my last placement yet somehow felt like I learned a lot more and had a more varied experience of the service.
Dermatology in France is quite similar to the UK but there are a few notable differences. Firstly, on the 20-bed ward I'd say at least half of the patients at any given time were in with leg ulcers (dermatologists don't generally deal with ulcers in the UK). More bizarrely, I found out that in France dermatologists also take charge of most cases of syphilis, whether or not the patients have skin symptoms! It's a bit of a hotch potch. In addition, I kept noticing drugs being used in funny ways that I've never heard of before - for example topical Spironolactone?! (non-medics: in England, spironolactone is a drug that you take as a tablet and it makes you pee more. In France, they put the same drug in a cream and it cures acne. I never would have guessed).
The only drawback of this 'stage' was the number of students attatched to the department. It's a big service, but there were 10 externes, 2 Erasmus students and at least 6 third year students who had to come in in the mornings. AND often we had pharmacy students sitting in on the consultations too - apparently it's a requirement of their studies here. Now most of the externes were often busy on the ward or in Hopital du jour, but even with 2 or three clinics running alongside each other things still got a little crowded and there were some I would have liked to go to but didn't get the chance.
But all in all, c'etait super!
Not much else to report for now except that I have been shut away in bed this weekend with a terrible French disease that I am convinced I caught at our first adventure to the public swimming baths last Wednesday. That'll teach us to try and be healthy. I've recovered enough to go ice skating tonight though, hopefully that will prove to be a far less germ-riddled activity. And only two more days until I break this Nantes cabin fever that's setting in and go home for Easter weekend! Can't wait!
Marie
xxx
Tuesday 23 March 2010
2 weekends and 1 more trashy romance novel review (you lucky people you!)
Hello, friends, family and random people who may have stumbled across our little corner of the blogosphere
So a couple of weeks have passed since Rheons visit, and I have started my placement in gastro, the days are crazy long, the worst being 8 am till 7.30pm but they're going fairly quickly, and since i was prepared for them i'm trying to just greet them with graceful resignation rather than red-faced rage. Also the other externes are nice and helpful and I do slighlty feel like i'm getting better at the whole externe malarkey.
My parents keep telling me how useful this is all going to be for F1 and i continue to disagree with them. Most of what I do is taking histories and the ward round, with a bit of menial secretarial work on top. All of which i can already do in english, my prescribing knowledge feels like its gone back 3 years cos I don't know what any of the drugs are by brand name and I generally feel a lot like an idiot the whole time....but at least I'll be used to long days!
The weekend after rheons visit we went dancing at the LU on the friday night and got to experience the joy of french mens flirting technique - they dance up to you, they poke you or do something else equally annoying to try and get your attention and then when you don't instantly fall into a quivering heap of desire at their feet they dance away again. We also did a bit of shopping (including a 2nd hand bookshop but more of that later!), some wine tasting and made delicious thai green curry.
Another week at hospital flew by and then last weekend Marie's friend Laura came to visit us. Friday night italian disco at the LU wasn't really jumping so we ended up going to the club that had the indie night on, altho this time it was an african music night dj-ed and mc-ed by 2 particularly white looking men, but it was fun to dance to! I'll leave marie to add one of the sweaty pictures of us all if she so desires. Saturday we showed laura the town and did some shopping and then had delicious tapas for dinner then chilled out with a bit of high school musical 2. Inspired by the classic zac emo-golf course dance in HSM2 (if you haven't seen it then you really should)we played mini golf on sunday and threw some shapes:
I did lose horribly, but it was still fun;
on the plus side it seems spring is arriving as evidenced by blossom:
and baby ducks:
Somehow in between all this crazy excitement I managed to fit in one more trashy novel, no i don't know how i find the time either. So without further ado welcome to:
French Literature reviews with Alex part 3: Intrigue a l'hopital (intrigue at the hospital)
I have to say its good to know that french romance novel translators have become equally lazy in their title giving as the english authors have.
So, we've reached modern times and a medical setting which obviously means that linguistically this book was a useful use of my time.
The title wasn't lying either, this book actually manages to create a vague sensation of intrigue for maybe 2 chapters before it spills the beans, by telling us that our heroine Annie, and her ex-lover/new colleague (nightmare!) Nathan (who has rippling muscles underneath comfortable sweaters, just what every girl dreams of) don't entirely see eye-to eye ( i wonder how you say that in french?) on why they broke up. Turns out it was because annie was a crazy baby obsessed nutter who took nathans suggestion that maybe they wait a while to spawn as a rejection then refused to see him ever again. I know right - totally reasonable reaction, this woman isn't high maintenance.
Another sign of modern times is that annie has a GBF (gay best friend) who naturally has to pretend to be her boyf for a while to put off nathan in a slighly underused subplot that has of course been done many times before elsewhere.
Things take an exciting turn before reaching their predictable end when annie is stabbed right in the heart by a tattooed ruffian, I think they were going for some ER-esque excitement here with the emergency thoractomy and what not except it was in no way as well written and if it were ER the staff member probably would have died instead of getting a happy ending. But we being in mills and boon territory it's all fine, and annie gets better and just feels a bit sleepy and sore and then her and nathan get married and have babies, once the thoractomy scar heals i assume although maybe not, i was getting pretty bored by this point.
Whilst i always consider the people in these books to be total jack-asses this pair were a particularly fine example. So overall i'd have to declare it average, but with some nifty medical language that I may well use if ever called upon to do an emergency thoracotomy on a tattooed ruffian.
much love
alex
So a couple of weeks have passed since Rheons visit, and I have started my placement in gastro, the days are crazy long, the worst being 8 am till 7.30pm but they're going fairly quickly, and since i was prepared for them i'm trying to just greet them with graceful resignation rather than red-faced rage. Also the other externes are nice and helpful and I do slighlty feel like i'm getting better at the whole externe malarkey.
My parents keep telling me how useful this is all going to be for F1 and i continue to disagree with them. Most of what I do is taking histories and the ward round, with a bit of menial secretarial work on top. All of which i can already do in english, my prescribing knowledge feels like its gone back 3 years cos I don't know what any of the drugs are by brand name and I generally feel a lot like an idiot the whole time....but at least I'll be used to long days!
The weekend after rheons visit we went dancing at the LU on the friday night and got to experience the joy of french mens flirting technique - they dance up to you, they poke you or do something else equally annoying to try and get your attention and then when you don't instantly fall into a quivering heap of desire at their feet they dance away again. We also did a bit of shopping (including a 2nd hand bookshop but more of that later!), some wine tasting and made delicious thai green curry.
Another week at hospital flew by and then last weekend Marie's friend Laura came to visit us. Friday night italian disco at the LU wasn't really jumping so we ended up going to the club that had the indie night on, altho this time it was an african music night dj-ed and mc-ed by 2 particularly white looking men, but it was fun to dance to! I'll leave marie to add one of the sweaty pictures of us all if she so desires. Saturday we showed laura the town and did some shopping and then had delicious tapas for dinner then chilled out with a bit of high school musical 2. Inspired by the classic zac emo-golf course dance in HSM2 (if you haven't seen it then you really should)we played mini golf on sunday and threw some shapes:
I did lose horribly, but it was still fun;
on the plus side it seems spring is arriving as evidenced by blossom:
and baby ducks:
Somehow in between all this crazy excitement I managed to fit in one more trashy novel, no i don't know how i find the time either. So without further ado welcome to:
French Literature reviews with Alex part 3: Intrigue a l'hopital (intrigue at the hospital)
I have to say its good to know that french romance novel translators have become equally lazy in their title giving as the english authors have.
So, we've reached modern times and a medical setting which obviously means that linguistically this book was a useful use of my time.
The title wasn't lying either, this book actually manages to create a vague sensation of intrigue for maybe 2 chapters before it spills the beans, by telling us that our heroine Annie, and her ex-lover/new colleague (nightmare!) Nathan (who has rippling muscles underneath comfortable sweaters, just what every girl dreams of) don't entirely see eye-to eye ( i wonder how you say that in french?) on why they broke up. Turns out it was because annie was a crazy baby obsessed nutter who took nathans suggestion that maybe they wait a while to spawn as a rejection then refused to see him ever again. I know right - totally reasonable reaction, this woman isn't high maintenance.
Another sign of modern times is that annie has a GBF (gay best friend) who naturally has to pretend to be her boyf for a while to put off nathan in a slighly underused subplot that has of course been done many times before elsewhere.
Things take an exciting turn before reaching their predictable end when annie is stabbed right in the heart by a tattooed ruffian, I think they were going for some ER-esque excitement here with the emergency thoractomy and what not except it was in no way as well written and if it were ER the staff member probably would have died instead of getting a happy ending. But we being in mills and boon territory it's all fine, and annie gets better and just feels a bit sleepy and sore and then her and nathan get married and have babies, once the thoractomy scar heals i assume although maybe not, i was getting pretty bored by this point.
Whilst i always consider the people in these books to be total jack-asses this pair were a particularly fine example. So overall i'd have to declare it average, but with some nifty medical language that I may well use if ever called upon to do an emergency thoracotomy on a tattooed ruffian.
much love
alex
Monday 15 March 2010
Castle Showdown
Because as they say a picture is worth 1000 words, here are some more photos of what we have been up to.
When Rheon visited last weekend we went for an explore around town to show him the sights and the conversation took an obvious turn: If Nantes castle and Caernarfon castle had a fight, who would win?
CAERNARFON
1) Older
2) Has been featured on the Google home page
NANTES
1) Better gargoyles
2) It's got a moat
VERDICT - DRAW
We also took some pictures of the famous elephant, I am amazed that with all the mentions he's had on this blog we are yet to show you what he looks like.
Meet Jules:
Here is some footage of him in action, for those of you not on Facebook:
And here is a photo of Alex and I standing exactly on top of his head! With hindsight I really wish we had done the 'Titanic' pose. Maybe next time.
Another thing we did was discovered a little bit of nature sitting right on our doorstep - I don't believe it's taken more than a month to do this but we explored the banks of the local river Erdre and it's lovely! You can walk or take boats right along it, and even a bus that's disguised as a boat, and there is even a little chateau not very far away at all. Plus we saw some sort of wildlife, which looked like a beaver, but might have been an otter, and maybe just a relative of them both.
And finally because no weekend in France is complete without one, here's a photo of a demonstration:
Ta-daaaaa.
Marie
xxx
When Rheon visited last weekend we went for an explore around town to show him the sights and the conversation took an obvious turn: If Nantes castle and Caernarfon castle had a fight, who would win?
CAERNARFON
1) Older
2) Has been featured on the Google home page
NANTES
1) Better gargoyles
2) It's got a moat
VERDICT - DRAW
We also took some pictures of the famous elephant, I am amazed that with all the mentions he's had on this blog we are yet to show you what he looks like.
Meet Jules:
Here is some footage of him in action, for those of you not on Facebook:
And here is a photo of Alex and I standing exactly on top of his head! With hindsight I really wish we had done the 'Titanic' pose. Maybe next time.
Another thing we did was discovered a little bit of nature sitting right on our doorstep - I don't believe it's taken more than a month to do this but we explored the banks of the local river Erdre and it's lovely! You can walk or take boats right along it, and even a bus that's disguised as a boat, and there is even a little chateau not very far away at all. Plus we saw some sort of wildlife, which looked like a beaver, but might have been an otter, and maybe just a relative of them both.
And finally because no weekend in France is complete without one, here's a photo of a demonstration:
Ta-daaaaa.
Marie
xxx
Thursday 11 March 2010
bits and bobs
I am aware that I promised an all-singing all-dancing spectacular update of Rheon's visit last weekend but Alex and Rheon, who took all the photos, haven't sent me said photos, so a small summary will have to do:
1) It was very lovely
2) We went on the elephant - kind of a disappointment! Apparently elephants are nicer to look at than to ride on. Jules is kind of slow and doesn't take a very scenic route. Plus, it's a right rip off, and your entrance fee only allows to to choose either the elephant OR the gallery of all the other creatures, so we still haven't seen them yet.
3) We found a decent club night in Nantes! Something I feared would never occur. It was called 'Hang The DJ' and had a decent Mancunian playlist, the crowd (ok Alex and I) went wild with excitement on hearing mention of 'Salford' by Tony Wilson on the introduction to Transmission by Joy Division. Oh what I wouldn't give for a half an hour browse round Salford Shopping City right now.
In other news I don't have much news, only brief observations of the curiosities of French life. Did you know, stats fans, that a pie chart here is called a Camembert! I love that.
Everybody knows that the French love their dogs but perhaps do not realise to quite what lengths they will go to display this. Yesterday I was strolling round to Alex's for tea and as I turned the corner I was met with a woman with a frizzly poodle-type dog, wearing an argyle jumper. Fair enough, I thought, a dog in a jumper, a bit embarrassing but each to their own. As I got closer I realised that the pair had paused while the dog did its business by the hedge and the woman was meanwhile talking to it in a high pitched 'coochie coo' baby voice. But then as I got a few steps closer again I almost fell over in disgust as with my very own eyes I saw the woman bend down, head to pavement level, and sniff the dog's bottom when it had finished before picking him up in her handbag and carrying on their merry way! Put me right off my risotto that did. Always been more of a cat person myself.
This week we have encountered some problems with French bureaucracy when trying to apply for financial aid for our accommodation. We're entitled to about 80 euros a month (which when you think the accommodation costs about 140 euros a month is pretty great) but maaaan they make it hard to get it! They've asked for about a million documents and a French bank account, all hurdles we have managed to dodge so far, but now want a copy of our birth certificates with our parents names on them. Alex has lost her birth certificate long ago whereas I have one but it doesn't have my parents' names on it.
And to make matters worse I have just e-mailed our Erasmus supervisor to ask for help with this pickle and by accident in my exhausted, hospital-frazzled state signed off 'Felicitations' (congratulations) instead of 'Cordialement'. OH NO.
This is probably a sign that I should be sleeping right now instead of blogging. Night night, lots of love,
Marie
xxx
1) It was very lovely
2) We went on the elephant - kind of a disappointment! Apparently elephants are nicer to look at than to ride on. Jules is kind of slow and doesn't take a very scenic route. Plus, it's a right rip off, and your entrance fee only allows to to choose either the elephant OR the gallery of all the other creatures, so we still haven't seen them yet.
3) We found a decent club night in Nantes! Something I feared would never occur. It was called 'Hang The DJ' and had a decent Mancunian playlist, the crowd (ok Alex and I) went wild with excitement on hearing mention of 'Salford' by Tony Wilson on the introduction to Transmission by Joy Division. Oh what I wouldn't give for a half an hour browse round Salford Shopping City right now.
In other news I don't have much news, only brief observations of the curiosities of French life. Did you know, stats fans, that a pie chart here is called a Camembert! I love that.
Everybody knows that the French love their dogs but perhaps do not realise to quite what lengths they will go to display this. Yesterday I was strolling round to Alex's for tea and as I turned the corner I was met with a woman with a frizzly poodle-type dog, wearing an argyle jumper. Fair enough, I thought, a dog in a jumper, a bit embarrassing but each to their own. As I got closer I realised that the pair had paused while the dog did its business by the hedge and the woman was meanwhile talking to it in a high pitched 'coochie coo' baby voice. But then as I got a few steps closer again I almost fell over in disgust as with my very own eyes I saw the woman bend down, head to pavement level, and sniff the dog's bottom when it had finished before picking him up in her handbag and carrying on their merry way! Put me right off my risotto that did. Always been more of a cat person myself.
This week we have encountered some problems with French bureaucracy when trying to apply for financial aid for our accommodation. We're entitled to about 80 euros a month (which when you think the accommodation costs about 140 euros a month is pretty great) but maaaan they make it hard to get it! They've asked for about a million documents and a French bank account, all hurdles we have managed to dodge so far, but now want a copy of our birth certificates with our parents names on them. Alex has lost her birth certificate long ago whereas I have one but it doesn't have my parents' names on it.
And to make matters worse I have just e-mailed our Erasmus supervisor to ask for help with this pickle and by accident in my exhausted, hospital-frazzled state signed off 'Felicitations' (congratulations) instead of 'Cordialement'. OH NO.
This is probably a sign that I should be sleeping right now instead of blogging. Night night, lots of love,
Marie
xxx
Wednesday 10 March 2010
Literature reviews with alex - part 2
This week I made my way through "un eclair de flash" - which i think roughly translates as a flash of light.
We've moved into the 80s now and boy have times changed! Our heroine is Kate - a young secretary because clearly the 80s was too long ago for women to have proper jobs.
By a form of accident that's too boring to explain Kate ends up in the company of dashing superstar singer Luke Hastings and has to stay the night at his house.
Plot wise it's definitely a step forward from the man of granite, in that there kind of is one. Luke suspects Kate of setting him up to get a story to sell the papers, kate fancies the pants off luke but doesn't want him to think she's that kind of girl (which she totally is).
Luke offers Kate a job and she's goes with him and his sister to New York, and this is where the trouble starts.
Kate makes the mortal sin of talking to another man - the "jeune new-yorkais" Steve. For this she gets moody looks, death threats and forced kisses. Now generally my motto is "each to their own" when it comes to bedroom behaviour but personally death threats dont really get me weak at the knees. But it's ok because in the end it turns out Luke was just acting like a violent, jealous wanker because he loves kate so much.....well that's alright then.
What the book fails to add is the epilogue where 2 years later Luke drowns kate in their pool because she smiled at the chauffeur. Probably un peu trop true to life for harlequin.
So after a promising start "un eclair de flash" ultimately fails on the basis of disguising a jealous temper and anger control issues as a sign of true love.
Score: - 5326
A review of "play-boy du desert" will follow soon, if you care. But after that you may have to wait for a while because I accidently bought some proper literature.
Bises
We've moved into the 80s now and boy have times changed! Our heroine is Kate - a young secretary because clearly the 80s was too long ago for women to have proper jobs.
By a form of accident that's too boring to explain Kate ends up in the company of dashing superstar singer Luke Hastings and has to stay the night at his house.
Plot wise it's definitely a step forward from the man of granite, in that there kind of is one. Luke suspects Kate of setting him up to get a story to sell the papers, kate fancies the pants off luke but doesn't want him to think she's that kind of girl (which she totally is).
Luke offers Kate a job and she's goes with him and his sister to New York, and this is where the trouble starts.
Kate makes the mortal sin of talking to another man - the "jeune new-yorkais" Steve. For this she gets moody looks, death threats and forced kisses. Now generally my motto is "each to their own" when it comes to bedroom behaviour but personally death threats dont really get me weak at the knees. But it's ok because in the end it turns out Luke was just acting like a violent, jealous wanker because he loves kate so much.....well that's alright then.
What the book fails to add is the epilogue where 2 years later Luke drowns kate in their pool because she smiled at the chauffeur. Probably un peu trop true to life for harlequin.
So after a promising start "un eclair de flash" ultimately fails on the basis of disguising a jealous temper and anger control issues as a sign of true love.
Score: - 5326
A review of "play-boy du desert" will follow soon, if you care. But after that you may have to wait for a while because I accidently bought some proper literature.
Bises
Monday 8 March 2010
Gastro review
As promised here's a little review of my gastro placement in case anybody reading this is thinking about choosing Nantes for European Option in the future!
Firstly I thought the placement was really well organised, the supervisor was really nice and prepared for my arrival. The staff were already aware that I had to do UPSAs, UCEXs etc and helped me make arrangements to get things signed off without me having to tell them first.
Secondly, the days were LONG! 7.30 am till 7.30pm was my longest but average was maybe 8.30-6.30. At first I thought it's just a French thing to have such long working days but apparently not, a few students have told me this gastro placement has a reputation for being hard work. The long days weren’t so bad when there were lots of new patients so I was kept busy taking histories and examining but otherwise the externes seemed reluctant to give me other tasks to do, particularly didn’t seem to have much faith in my written French e.g. writing letters and requests! This meant I got kind of bored a lot of the time and did a lot of sitting around. Whether this is related to the placement itself or just a reflection of the particular externes I was working with I'm not sure. They were very nice and friendly though - more 'these are our jobs, you don't have to worry about doing too much work' rather than just not wanting to include me!
I kind of felt like a lazy English student complaining about this but it is worth thinking about because as we’ve said before, after you factor in time for commuting to hospital and eating dinner etc that timetable doesn’t really leave much time to enjoy Nantes, make friends, arrange things like bank accounts and CAF, all the little things that Erasmus is all about.
Will blog again soon about Rheon's visit this weekend as soon as I've got the photos up!
Marie
xxx
Firstly I thought the placement was really well organised, the supervisor was really nice and prepared for my arrival. The staff were already aware that I had to do UPSAs, UCEXs etc and helped me make arrangements to get things signed off without me having to tell them first.
Secondly, the days were LONG! 7.30 am till 7.30pm was my longest but average was maybe 8.30-6.30. At first I thought it's just a French thing to have such long working days but apparently not, a few students have told me this gastro placement has a reputation for being hard work. The long days weren’t so bad when there were lots of new patients so I was kept busy taking histories and examining but otherwise the externes seemed reluctant to give me other tasks to do, particularly didn’t seem to have much faith in my written French e.g. writing letters and requests! This meant I got kind of bored a lot of the time and did a lot of sitting around. Whether this is related to the placement itself or just a reflection of the particular externes I was working with I'm not sure. They were very nice and friendly though - more 'these are our jobs, you don't have to worry about doing too much work' rather than just not wanting to include me!
I kind of felt like a lazy English student complaining about this but it is worth thinking about because as we’ve said before, after you factor in time for commuting to hospital and eating dinner etc that timetable doesn’t really leave much time to enjoy Nantes, make friends, arrange things like bank accounts and CAF, all the little things that Erasmus is all about.
Will blog again soon about Rheon's visit this weekend as soon as I've got the photos up!
Marie
xxx
Monday 1 March 2010
French Literature Reviews with Alex - Part 1
Number 1: L'homme de granit (the man of granite).
L'homme de granit is a piece of classic literature, in that it was written in 1971. With this in mind we meet our heroine Beverley. Beverley, we glean from the cover, has long blonde hair and is in an artist and also teacher at the local secondary school in the un-named derbyshire town where this unlikely story is set.
Beverley is friends with the eccentric and irascible Mrs Dunlopp who in her old age decides to go and live in New Zealand and also to take advantage of her young friends poverty by arranging a will that basically forces her to marry Mrs Dunlopps great nephew, with whom Beverley must share a house for the next 6 months. (p.s can you actually set up wills in such a ridiculous manner and whilst your still alive, cos if so i'm totally going to do it).
So enter the great-nephew, courdroy and sweater wearing man of granite himself Grant Gard. From the cover we learn that Grant has chiselled looks and a penchant for brooding. This is basically all there is to learn about him, plus the fact that he is an avowed mysoginist and says he'll never marry.
Now I know what you're thinking, young chiselled man, young lady artiste – there's gonna be some sexy time here. Well no, you'd be wrong. Just because Beverley is an artist doesn't mean she's a slag bag, oh no. And it's totally not her fault that one of her teacher colleagues and the son of a family who exhibit her art in their restaurant (Derek and Neil – so 70s) are like totally in love with her and keep trying to get her to marry them and kissing her whether she likes it or not. And she totally doesn't lead them on by telling them she won't marry them and then inviting them to parties and dancing with them, or getting them to take her places as and when it suits her. I mean, it's the 70s, it's not like she's allowed to drive herself.
So cue lots of Grant being a moody a-hole and calling Beverley a saucy wench every page, and Beverley wandering around being pathetic and wishing; oh if only Grant would love me because he's such a wanker and so very chiselled that it really turns me on. They do get married, even though they claim to still hate each other so that Beverley can use the money she gets to help her impoverished mother (who lives in birmingham – so, you know, must be poor).
In the end after much rather dull I-hate-you-oh-ok-kiss-me-then nonsense it turns out they were both only being idiots because they loved each other so much and it just took Beverley going away for a few days for them to realise this. And then they have a touching reunion where Beverley asks Grant if he'd like her to quit her job, but it's not necessary – he's quite the modern man and is willing to consider having a wife who works...maybe.
I hope you enjoyed this first episode in my tour of french literature, coming up soon we have “un eclair de flash” followed by a more modern piece; “le play-boy du desert”.
Bises
L'homme de granit is a piece of classic literature, in that it was written in 1971. With this in mind we meet our heroine Beverley. Beverley, we glean from the cover, has long blonde hair and is in an artist and also teacher at the local secondary school in the un-named derbyshire town where this unlikely story is set.
Beverley is friends with the eccentric and irascible Mrs Dunlopp who in her old age decides to go and live in New Zealand and also to take advantage of her young friends poverty by arranging a will that basically forces her to marry Mrs Dunlopps great nephew, with whom Beverley must share a house for the next 6 months. (p.s can you actually set up wills in such a ridiculous manner and whilst your still alive, cos if so i'm totally going to do it).
So enter the great-nephew, courdroy and sweater wearing man of granite himself Grant Gard. From the cover we learn that Grant has chiselled looks and a penchant for brooding. This is basically all there is to learn about him, plus the fact that he is an avowed mysoginist and says he'll never marry.
Now I know what you're thinking, young chiselled man, young lady artiste – there's gonna be some sexy time here. Well no, you'd be wrong. Just because Beverley is an artist doesn't mean she's a slag bag, oh no. And it's totally not her fault that one of her teacher colleagues and the son of a family who exhibit her art in their restaurant (Derek and Neil – so 70s) are like totally in love with her and keep trying to get her to marry them and kissing her whether she likes it or not. And she totally doesn't lead them on by telling them she won't marry them and then inviting them to parties and dancing with them, or getting them to take her places as and when it suits her. I mean, it's the 70s, it's not like she's allowed to drive herself.
So cue lots of Grant being a moody a-hole and calling Beverley a saucy wench every page, and Beverley wandering around being pathetic and wishing; oh if only Grant would love me because he's such a wanker and so very chiselled that it really turns me on. They do get married, even though they claim to still hate each other so that Beverley can use the money she gets to help her impoverished mother (who lives in birmingham – so, you know, must be poor).
In the end after much rather dull I-hate-you-oh-ok-kiss-me-then nonsense it turns out they were both only being idiots because they loved each other so much and it just took Beverley going away for a few days for them to realise this. And then they have a touching reunion where Beverley asks Grant if he'd like her to quit her job, but it's not necessary – he's quite the modern man and is willing to consider having a wife who works...maybe.
I hope you enjoyed this first episode in my tour of french literature, coming up soon we have “un eclair de flash” followed by a more modern piece; “le play-boy du desert”.
Bises
Chanting dans le pluie
The weather is horrible here in Nantes but we're not letting that ruin our fun!
To be honest, the ecstatic expressions you see here on our faces are largely due to the arrival of ma cherie maman on Thursday, and with her the arrival of just SO MUCH chocolate, as well as teabags, magazines, make-up and lots of other goodies.
When she got here we went straight to my halls to drop all the gifts off and show her around - she was less than impressed with the living arrangements: "It's worse than you can tell from the photos on the blog" !!! Luckily I got to stay for the weekend with her in a lovely little boutique B&B, near the jardin des plantes, tres luxe.
On the Friday I had to go into hospital so Mum amused herself during the day but it was fine, there's plenty to do and see. So no excuse everyone else for not coming to visit! Here's a photo she took of me going to hospital and you can just make out the name, which I don't believe we've mentioned on this blog before: ''Hotel Dieu'' = God's Hotel?!! Worst name for a hospital ever!
Friday evening was ruined somewhat when I got some nasty food poisoning from a dodgy crepe! You'd think pancake and goat's cheese would be a fairly safe option for an evening meal but apparently not. Think I'll be giving up the chevre from now on (although to be honest I've eaten enough of the stuff since we got here). Luckily all was well again by early Saturday so we headed over to the flea market again where Alex tried on a variety of 80 euro furs and I looked for a vintage ball dress. Now everyone knows I love a good mooch round a charity shop but apparently this is frowned upon in France - charity shops are for the homeless and needy and it's not seen as cool or stylish to try and find vintage bargains in them In fact they might even refuse to serve you because they see it as stealing away an opportunity for a bargain that someone else deserves more! So it looks like slightly overpriced flea market pickings are the way forward for now.
For the rest of the day we wandered around some of the more touristy sights that we hadn't seen yet in the pouring rain - the Musée des Beaux Arts (very good), the cathedral (disappointingly bare). It felt like the whole weekend went too quickly! But it's only 3 more sleeps till we will have our next visitor as Rheon is coming on Thursday, I cannot WAIT :-D It's elephant time.
Only one more day left of gastro to go. Can't believe a month is over already! I think later this week I'll do a little review similar to Alex's because it will hopefully be useful for future students. Can't say I'm sorry to be leaving this placement though to be honest, it has been pretty hardcore, I'm ready for a dermaholiday.
A plus!
Marie
xxx
Sunday 28 February 2010
first placement over and first visitor in nantes!
Wowza,
one month gone by already, it's really weird to think that we've done 1/4 of our time here. It's gone really quick and really slowly all at the same time.
I'm beginning to feel quite settled in really. Although this will probably all change the minute I start my new placement and feel like a newbie all over again.
Pneumo was really quite a good placement: any of you that are reading this thinking of coming to Nantes, i do recommend it. They were really nice, they could have done a better intro to the service, you are quite thrown into things but its defintitely a nice group of people to work with. There was another ward with more rare diseases - people with CF and tihngs like that but by the time I felt like I'd got my head round the main ward 3 weeks had gone. Also I felt that it was good to be dealing with quite bog-standard resp diseases because that's mostly what i'm going to see next year. However for my next placement I think I'm going to look into mixing it up a bit, maybe going to the hopital du jour. This is mostly because i'm slightly dreading gastro!
Have a few days off now which is really nice, i'm so excited for it.
Anyway, this weekend we had our first visitor in the form of Marie's mum, it was really lovely to have her here - i shall leave marie to describe her visit more but thought i'd post this little pic of the amazing goodies she bought me.
bises Alex
one month gone by already, it's really weird to think that we've done 1/4 of our time here. It's gone really quick and really slowly all at the same time.
I'm beginning to feel quite settled in really. Although this will probably all change the minute I start my new placement and feel like a newbie all over again.
Pneumo was really quite a good placement: any of you that are reading this thinking of coming to Nantes, i do recommend it. They were really nice, they could have done a better intro to the service, you are quite thrown into things but its defintitely a nice group of people to work with. There was another ward with more rare diseases - people with CF and tihngs like that but by the time I felt like I'd got my head round the main ward 3 weeks had gone. Also I felt that it was good to be dealing with quite bog-standard resp diseases because that's mostly what i'm going to see next year. However for my next placement I think I'm going to look into mixing it up a bit, maybe going to the hopital du jour. This is mostly because i'm slightly dreading gastro!
Have a few days off now which is really nice, i'm so excited for it.
Anyway, this weekend we had our first visitor in the form of Marie's mum, it was really lovely to have her here - i shall leave marie to describe her visit more but thought i'd post this little pic of the amazing goodies she bought me.
bises Alex
Thursday 25 February 2010
Communication francais style
Indeed I do have an example Marie!
First can I just say that oh I too feel Marie's pain - I reckon that I fail to translate a word in pretty much every single sentence that I say but I think I may have just stopped caring, its like, they think I'm an idiot, I feel like an idiot so at least we're all in agreement!
So anyways, back to fabulous french communication, for those of you who don't know the S in SPIKES is for setting - obviously a busy coridoor is not the place for discussions about end of life care. Now i can't remember what all the rest of the letters stand for but the gist is, warning shots, information bit by bit.
what you should most definitely NOT do is what one of the doctors on pneumo did
" well Madame " (i'm paraphrasing here obv) " you've had a blood clot in your lungs and we need to find out why this is, there's lots of reasons, including cancer, so anyway off you go, see you later"
Result: one frightened woman who hasn't really been properly told why she's in hospital and thinks she's got cancer, decides to leave "contre-avis". cue much loud discussion, then some shouting that i couldn't really follow and us externes being told to wait in the office and not go out in the corridoor, security men getting called. Ooh the drams
To be honest i quite enjoyed it, it was all very exciting, but I did feel for the woman and it's definitely a good example of how not to talk to patients.
Bizz!
First can I just say that oh I too feel Marie's pain - I reckon that I fail to translate a word in pretty much every single sentence that I say but I think I may have just stopped caring, its like, they think I'm an idiot, I feel like an idiot so at least we're all in agreement!
So anyways, back to fabulous french communication, for those of you who don't know the S in SPIKES is for setting - obviously a busy coridoor is not the place for discussions about end of life care. Now i can't remember what all the rest of the letters stand for but the gist is, warning shots, information bit by bit.
what you should most definitely NOT do is what one of the doctors on pneumo did
" well Madame " (i'm paraphrasing here obv) " you've had a blood clot in your lungs and we need to find out why this is, there's lots of reasons, including cancer, so anyway off you go, see you later"
Result: one frightened woman who hasn't really been properly told why she's in hospital and thinks she's got cancer, decides to leave "contre-avis". cue much loud discussion, then some shouting that i couldn't really follow and us externes being told to wait in the office and not go out in the corridoor, security men getting called. Ooh the drams
To be honest i quite enjoyed it, it was all very exciting, but I did feel for the woman and it's definitely a good example of how not to talk to patients.
Bizz!
Tuesday 23 February 2010
People told me that after I’d been in France a couple of weeks, the language would become second nature and I’d begin to start thinking in French. NOT TRUE. I’m sick of making all these silly English mistakes! A prime example: today we were reading through the notes of one of the new patients on the ward and saw in her past medical history that she’d had an ‘Amygdalectomie’. Now I was pretty intrigued by this. The amygdala? The centre in the brain that controls fear and emotions? She had that REMOVED? But why, and how? That’s crazy! I excitedly asked the other student about it and was confused by his apparent indifference; ‘Bahhh, I don’t know, I guess she must’ve had an infection or something’. It was only about an hour later that the realisation hit me that the French have two meanings for the word amygdale, and that one of those meanings is tonsil. Having your tonsils out, not quite so exotic.
I can’t decide yet what I think about the French health system. Would I prefer to be a patient here or on the NHS? Sure there are fewer superbugs around here, and resources are more plentiful, and it’s easier to see a specialist when you want one. In terms of interior design the French totally win as well, the rooms are really spacious with enormous windows...but on the other hand you know what, as a patient there are some tests I’d rather not have unless absolutely necessary (I swear they give out colonoscopies at the drop of a hat)! Also it seems that communication skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired! Last week I saw the nurses break the news of a man’s terminal cancer to his family while standing up in a little corner of the corridor while all the doctors were going round on the ward round. I know Alex has a few examples she’s planning on writing about too. They need some Manchester SPIKES teaching!
On Thursday we will be receiving our first visitor to Nantes in the form of ma mere! I’m very excited...however there is another STRIKE on the go, this time of air traffic controllers! I hope it doesn’t ruin our plans!
Marie
xxx
I can’t decide yet what I think about the French health system. Would I prefer to be a patient here or on the NHS? Sure there are fewer superbugs around here, and resources are more plentiful, and it’s easier to see a specialist when you want one. In terms of interior design the French totally win as well, the rooms are really spacious with enormous windows...but on the other hand you know what, as a patient there are some tests I’d rather not have unless absolutely necessary (I swear they give out colonoscopies at the drop of a hat)! Also it seems that communication skills sometimes leave a lot to be desired! Last week I saw the nurses break the news of a man’s terminal cancer to his family while standing up in a little corner of the corridor while all the doctors were going round on the ward round. I know Alex has a few examples she’s planning on writing about too. They need some Manchester SPIKES teaching!
On Thursday we will be receiving our first visitor to Nantes in the form of ma mere! I’m very excited...however there is another STRIKE on the go, this time of air traffic controllers! I hope it doesn’t ruin our plans!
Marie
xxx
Saturday 20 February 2010
flea maret purchases
Hey,
we went to the flea market today and spent many an hour looking at a mix of overpriced tat and amazing items that i wished i could afford
but what i could afford was
this
and this
and just because i took them here are a few photos of hopital nord laenec where i'm working : pretty huh?
we also made an attempt at partying nante style last night - didn't quite go to plan. The club was behind this really non-descript door and all we could see were 2 bouncers who said they were open and we could come in but still....it was really weird, so we ended up going to a bar for a drink which was cool, then attempted to find another club which turned out to be miles away so we ended up giving up and having a kebab, still it was good fun and nice to get out a bit. Next time we will succeed in dancing!
bizz
we went to the flea market today and spent many an hour looking at a mix of overpriced tat and amazing items that i wished i could afford
but what i could afford was
this
and this
and just because i took them here are a few photos of hopital nord laenec where i'm working : pretty huh?
we also made an attempt at partying nante style last night - didn't quite go to plan. The club was behind this really non-descript door and all we could see were 2 bouncers who said they were open and we could come in but still....it was really weird, so we ended up going to a bar for a drink which was cool, then attempted to find another club which turned out to be miles away so we ended up giving up and having a kebab, still it was good fun and nice to get out a bit. Next time we will succeed in dancing!
bizz
Thursday 18 February 2010
A first
So, yesterday was the first encounter I have had where I've been forced to do that weird kiss kiss on both cheeks thing when greeting French people I barely know...tres Francais...
I think I just about kept my cool and pulled it off, but the restrained English woman voice in my head spent the whole time going 'WOAH THERE! WOAH! PERSONAL SPACE!'
Marie
xxx
I think I just about kept my cool and pulled it off, but the restrained English woman voice in my head spent the whole time going 'WOAH THERE! WOAH! PERSONAL SPACE!'
Marie
xxx
france certainly needs its health system
Cos i swear being healthy in this country is just god damn impossible - skimmed milk doesn't seem to exist - or low fat mayo for that matter and everyone eats enormous meals at lunch time of like steak and chips and there are beautiful looking cakes everywhere and yet they're all as skinny as anything!
NO FAIR!
Our halls are having an international evening and we have to take some english delicacies - TIPS PLEASE - bearing in mind we have no oven
in case you all didn't know its St Bernadette's day today
You know i think we should do like russians do and celebrate our Sts days as well as our birthdays - good plan no?
BIZZ
NO FAIR!
Our halls are having an international evening and we have to take some english delicacies - TIPS PLEASE - bearing in mind we have no oven
in case you all didn't know its St Bernadette's day today
You know i think we should do like russians do and celebrate our Sts days as well as our birthdays - good plan no?
BIZZ
Saturday 13 February 2010
Thursday 11 February 2010
snow day!
1 Inch of snow is apparently enough to stop all buses in Nantes! it actually makes me feel that the english cope slightly better with bad weather and that's saying something! Unfortunately for Marie the trams are still running so she's had to go in to hospital. I'm umming and aahing about whether to take the whole day off because it seems to be clearing a bit now.
I might have to go in this afternoon booo, still, for now - nap time!
bizz
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Oop La!
Don't listen to Alex! There are LOADS of things she has fun doing in Nantes, and I've got proof! For example:
Going on le internet
Waiting at tram stops in le pouring rain
Trips to le Ikea
See! It's not so bad here.
The strike is over now, and the bins have finally been collected, which is a bonus! I feel like we're getting more into the routine of cooking and things, and we are slowly starting to make some friends. Last week we went to the Erasmus welcome party and met some French girls who are going to Nottingham for Erasmus next year, and tonight we're going with them to 'Café Anglophone' which is some kind of French-English weekly social. At the weekend we're going to meet up with some Romanian Erasmus students who we met on the first day. It's difficult having such a crazy timetable though because it just doesn't leave us enough time to do these fun things! The average day seems to be 8am-7pm so by the time we get back to the halls and make dinner, we just feel too tired to go out or be sociable. Plus I'm still yet to meet anyone living in my building to socialise with! It's a bit of a ghost town.
Over the weekend we did some sightseeing around Nantes (although to be honest rather than tourist hotspots a lot of our time was spent seeing the sights of various cafés with WiFi trying to get on Skype). Sadly the 'Machines d'Ile' park with the giant mechanical elephant ride was closed so we're saving that one for this weekend. We did the Natural History Museum, the castle, and 'le Lieu Unique' which is quite a cool place - Nantes is the biscuit capital of France don't you know, and le Lieu Unique is an old biscuit factory that they've converted into a centre with a bar, restaurant, cute little shops, a hammam, all sorts.
And here is me at le Lieu Unique. Sadly we did not see any biscuits there during our trip but there were lots of other biscuit-shaped items available.
I'm going to go now and make the most of my Wednesday afternoon off by having a realllly long nap :)
Marie
xxx
Going on le internet
Waiting at tram stops in le pouring rain
Trips to le Ikea
See! It's not so bad here.
The strike is over now, and the bins have finally been collected, which is a bonus! I feel like we're getting more into the routine of cooking and things, and we are slowly starting to make some friends. Last week we went to the Erasmus welcome party and met some French girls who are going to Nottingham for Erasmus next year, and tonight we're going with them to 'Café Anglophone' which is some kind of French-English weekly social. At the weekend we're going to meet up with some Romanian Erasmus students who we met on the first day. It's difficult having such a crazy timetable though because it just doesn't leave us enough time to do these fun things! The average day seems to be 8am-7pm so by the time we get back to the halls and make dinner, we just feel too tired to go out or be sociable. Plus I'm still yet to meet anyone living in my building to socialise with! It's a bit of a ghost town.
Over the weekend we did some sightseeing around Nantes (although to be honest rather than tourist hotspots a lot of our time was spent seeing the sights of various cafés with WiFi trying to get on Skype). Sadly the 'Machines d'Ile' park with the giant mechanical elephant ride was closed so we're saving that one for this weekend. We did the Natural History Museum, the castle, and 'le Lieu Unique' which is quite a cool place - Nantes is the biscuit capital of France don't you know, and le Lieu Unique is an old biscuit factory that they've converted into a centre with a bar, restaurant, cute little shops, a hammam, all sorts.
And here is me at le Lieu Unique. Sadly we did not see any biscuits there during our trip but there were lots of other biscuit-shaped items available.
I'm going to go now and make the most of my Wednesday afternoon off by having a realllly long nap :)
Marie
xxx
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