The month of April, busy busy. The only month this year that I haven't gone skiing! But I went to other places like Avignon, Toulon, an old preserved town you aren't allowed to drive in and my host family's private olive tree patch. And also I got some photos of their second house, the one they're doing up. Apparently it was the old post office at Sernhac, now it's a home in the making. But by far the most exciting thing that happened was the Blocus at school.
- A Blocus does exactly what it says on the tin, all the students get together and block up the entrances to the school, then they protest
- This time the Blocus was about the president's new education reforms which will result in teachers losing their jobs and class sizes going through the roof
- During Blocus instead of going to class the students march down to town hall and demand a room to speak with the mayor (I think that's the go, everyone was shouting so it was hard to tell)
- When that didn't happen they stood out front and made a lot of noise for a couple of hours
The Blocus, although quite fun, is not quite as effective as calling up channel 7 (although it seems most of the media are already supporting the students and teachers on this one). I didn't bring my camera to the Blocus, and so I haven't got any proof that it actually happened, you'll just have to trust me on that. I did take some pictures with my phone but they're all small and blurry and I can't figure out how to connect my phone to the computer to get them out... The Blocus was pretty good though, as far as stiking students go they put on a pretty good show. However French students have the right to protest when they're unhappy about changes. It's not just the students either, everybody does a lot of striking over here in France.
Next on the list, Avignon, lots of fun! Just a day trip, so I couldn't do everything, but I tried all the same. First we were just walking around a bit, went to a few shops, then in the afternoon we went on a tour of an old castle. My host mum knew the director so we got admission, audio guides and parking for free. Pretty sweet deal. Anyway, this place was commissioned by popes hundreds of years ago and was actually where they lived (at least when they were in France anyway). It was pretty impressive. I won't bore you with the history lesson; I'll just attach a few pics.
Toulon though was lots of fun and I didn't learn any history. Another day trip, this time mostly by myself (my host dad gave me a lift in, he had a work conference). I started by just walking around, but I eventually bought a map (I later received 2 FREE maps from the tourist info place). I went to the market, it was mostly fruit and veggies. There was a boat tour of the port. That was good fun, I saw all the military ships docked there and some other cool stuff too. Then in the afternoon I just walked around a bit and hung out in a park. Oh, and I went to the beach too. Picturesque.
Now, the private olive tree patch was pretty cool. A couple of weekends ago we all went up there to dig out and replat some of the trees. Sounds like a lot of work but my host dad knows someone who owns some big heavy earth moving machines, it was a bit over kill but fun to watch (when I say big heavy machines I really mean it, when they were driving the machines to the olive trees one of the trucks broke the little road and they spent the entire morning recovering it). That was lots of fun, but I forgot to bring my camera so no pics of the machines in action, althoughi do have some pics of the olive trees being burnt.
Anyway that's it from me. They've gotten rid of the virus on the computer so hopefully I'll be able to post more blogs, so keep checking back. If you would like to get on the mailing list and receive Si-Mail straight to your inbox when it comes out (it's not that often, believe me) then e-mail me at emyk.nomis@gmail.com or here and you'll be on the list quicker than I can write the next blog.
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