Where it's at (no dj equipment will be mentioned in this blog entry)

For a refreshing change, here are some photos of me drunk in Toulouse. One even features me in a lift. I'll leave it to you to guess which

Have you ever noticed how funny it is to eat a banana? I found myself just now winding through the streets of Toulouse, lit for the first time in about 2 weeks in beautiful autumnal sunshine (the weather here has been terrifyingly english of late), riding high and no handed on my beautiful shiny bicycle which I am hiring for 2€ a day from the Toulouse city council, eating a banana in the 'pull off a section and pop it in the mouth' style unable to supress a small laugh and a grin as I watched the good people of france go about their day unbanana-ed. Imagine the joy of a man with a banana and a bike, viewing the general public who had none and you will be close to sharing the fun.

This anecdote, apropos of nothing, heralds in the latest edtion of my life in which an element of stability has finally been acheived. I mark it down here in unwithering digital posterity as a reminder of the difference between that which you imagine will make you happy and that which actually has the power to do so.

Things are going from good to still good at the Alliance Francaise. It's something of a drain of the savings, but infinitely worth it in it's capacity to give me a reason to get up in the morning (class starts at nine!) and a way of meeting lots of nice people (virtually all spanish and german, but hey) who have nothing to do but enjoy themselves and speak french. My routine is this: Get up and go to class, buying a croissant or a pain au chocolat en route (I've paid for breakfast in this mad house but my hostess doesn't feel the need to buy anything) where I remain until 12:30. I then go with a group of espagnophones (I may have made this word up, it means spanish and south american people) to what is luxuriously known as Le Restaurant Universitaire which is basically an uber-sized canteen serving up slop for the students at remarkable prices. Seriously though. The food is great. After lunch I slope into town to find a cafe with some folk and discuss aspects of the french language or just life in general with my co-students (this is where I get to do all my french speaking at the moment). Then it's siesta time from 4 till 6. Then I do my homework like a good boy, and then I go out to a bar. That's it. Every day! And it's great.

I'm going to do one more month I think, taking me to the end of Level 6 (of a possible 7 or 8 depending on the size of the current student population at the start of a given month) which, from what I've seen of those that are nearing the end of this level, will give me a good working knowledge of the language and, more importantly, an ability to actually understand what's being said to me, rather than just catching a general drift. This will be mighty fine.

I'm still waiting to hear from "the clown who don't frown" (I just thought of that. Maybe I should go into advertising...) about my forthcoming McEmployment but I spoke this weekend to the manager, who actually seems like a nice normal human being, unlike the manager of a McDo in the UK who I'm sure would not have the time for a pleasant chat with someone coming to his or her place of work with broken english asking for a job. He said that it's far from extraordinary to wait two or three weeks before hearing anything as the application form has to go off to some distant sorting office for processing, flavourising, odourising and putting into a bun. I wait patiently for my response.

What I should really do now is go back and read my previous post as I can't remember whether or not I've already said that I've found an appartment... but I have. I'm in serious danger of repeating myself here so skip ahead if you need to.

Twas a rainy day in the south-west of france. When it rains here it really goes for it. It's been hailing a few times to. This would never have happened if the french had said oui to the EU constitution... I was in the southern reaches of this city with the english friend who I met through a Cambridge friend who I stayed with for a week when I was first here (that seems like not only a different city but a whole different lifetime). You can see my post sometime around the start of August or end of July for full details and a photo! We went to the cinema which was showing a french film, in french, with no subtitles, which I found frankly selfish but I went along for the ride nonetheless (how do you write that? Is it hyphenated or different words or what? Any linguists out there...). When I returned to Jonny's superb glistening flat I was soaking wet and cold. I bemoaned the fact that I was finding it impossible to find anywhere to live and blah blah blah when out of the blue, in a voice that seemed not to understand the pain and anguish of the previous 20 fruitless days of searching, Jonny said "you can live here if you want". You can insert your own falling-off-chair style hyberbola of amazement here if you like but, needless to say, I was speechless. Here was an opportunity to live in perfect harmony in a super-swish flat with someone who I already know and who is fluent in french... safe.

Now I realise that this presents serious problems for my language-learning. I'll be living with an english guy who's been here for long enough to be over the excitement and to have started to have feelings of nostalgia for stuff like the BBC, but I really think that for 4 months or so, I could make my home life comfortable and pleasant in contrast to the hell of grease and noise that I'm sure will be McDo, and I have one week to make up my mind. Do I turn the offer down and carry on living with my fruitcake host "mother", vainly searching for a place that as far as I've seen doesn't exist. Do I bollocks. I said yes. In fact I said "yes please, that would be wonderful. Pluck me from my life of homelessness and obscurity and give me a place to be. A place with a double-bed and a fridge and a shower that works and cooker and a SENSE OF CONTROL OVER MY LIFE!". Or words to that effect.

So that's that. I'm moving in with an english guy on the first of October and there's nothing that anyone can do about it. You might as well save the condemning-to-monolingualism emails and instead write me that you think I've made a good decision and that I'm brave and handsome and great.

You don't have to do that of course...

All my lovin'

Rob

Your oldest friend survives a terrorist attack and your self works at mcdonalds

There are some strange and unpleasant things in this world; that's nothing unusual, there's always horrible shit going down somewhere. The only thing that makes this horrible shit different is that it's happening to me and my nearest and dearest.

As many readers of this blog will know, my oldest friend was fortunate enough this week to be out of town on a day when terrorism struck small(ish) town Thailand, killing one of her friends and by the sounds of things really devastating the community. Her closing line in her email telling us she was ok ("Being poor but unharmed is fine by me" or words to that affect) really made me think about the world and how wierd it is that it's also so full of troubles. I mean, the problem with troubles is that they're so common and pervasive that you just don't notice anymore. But it is wierd when you think about it. We're all here just trying to breath, drink, eat and get laid and yet day in day out people are waging war on one another and blowing eachother up in the name of ideology. I realise this is extremely old news but have you ever had it where something you've always just known, you suddenly really know? Like, the simple fact of "I'm getting older". Suddenly one day you might really think about it and something just falls into place. Maybe it's just me.

So, in amongst all this devilry, suffering and loneliness, what have I done to alleviate my situation of being unemployed and homeless?

I've applied for a job in McDonalds.

Yes it's true. One day some small child will be able to say to another small child that his Dad works in McDonalds and he won't be just teasing. It'll be me. All five stars on my name-badge, flipping the finest burgers known to man and trying to chat up the woman who minces the cow eyeballs in the back room.

It's hardly my idea of a dream come true, but in a funny sort of way I think it's rather good. It's a job that's relatively easy, in French (est-ce que je peux prendre un BigMac et Fries s'il vous plait) that will pay reasonably and allow me to carry on my french classes in the mornings. Plus they've got these new natty McDonalds matching jeans and denim cap outfits that I've not seen before. Will they have my size I wonder....!

In more news today, I may be on the brink of moving in to the biggest cop-out of all time: A flat with an english housemate... Not only that but an english housemate I already know. It's a friend of a friend who I stayed with when last I was in Toulouse. It'll be rubbish for my french, but great for my life overall as the flat's super-swish, relatively central and not too costly. I think my time for living with french people will come, but maybe it's not quite yet. Perhaps once I've scaled all 8 levels of the Alliance Francais...

All my love to all those in safety and comfort as well as those in post-traumatic stress mode.

Your humble blog writer,

Rob (Pictured here drunk with language students in Toulouse. It's a good job you don't love me coz I'm handsome!)

Paying and Playing my way out of trouble

Eurgh. It's hard finding a job in France. In fact, at the moment at seems basically impossible. There are 4 english pubs in town, none of who want anyone, and my french is apparently laughably poor to any employer working in a francophone industry.

It's been a soul-wearing week or so of writing carefully crafted emails and texts in french and even a CV in french only to receive nothing or hastily written apologies in reply.

So here I am, almost 10 days in Toulouse and no job, no appartment, no nothing.

What about my lovely hosts, I hear you ask (seen left, drunk!). Well, the thing that's truely making me feel miserable at this moment is the fact that I ended up grossly outstaying my welcome with this lovely couple. Shit. It came upon me suddenly, when one day Julien told me that we needed to talk about what my plans were for getting somewhere else to stay. He told me that it was important to Helena that I move out soon as she needed some space (the appartment, if you recall, is only one room). I'd sensed some coldness in the days preceding but thought it was just circumstantial. Maybe she was hung over or pissed off about something. But, no: She was sick of the sight of me on their couch every morning.

I hurried into town and spent the day sending out emails to people on CouchSurfing.com desperately looking for somewhere to stay when Julien told me that they had someone else coming to stay that night and that it was ok for me to stay one more night but with 4 of us in the one room it was going to start getting really difficult. It was then I realised that I could never go back to Julien and Helena's place, unless it was to pick up my stuff and move out.

I couldn't believe that I'd allowed things to go sour between us, nor could I believe it was finding somewhere to stay. The one avenue I have, the other flatmates don't make up their mind until this Thursday (four days from now) and even then if I do get the place it doesn't start till the first of october, which is another 20 days away. I was in the shit.

So, I did what I always did in these situations: I payed and played my way out of trouble. I told Julien that, great news, I'd found somewhere to stay, and I booked myself into a hotel (42 euro a night, argh!). When I went round to get my stuff I was worried that things would be awkward but happily they had a load of friends over and helena seemed drunk, relaxed and happy to see me. I re-established my good relations with everyone by playing a selection of their favourite hits on the guitar and singing like a wild man, and everyone was back on my side.

Fine, but I'm not sure how many times I can buy and sing my way out of difficult situations like this. Certainly not forever. So what to do?

Well, just now I went and took a test at the Alliance Francais in the Toulouse central square (I think I may have written about the last test I did in Bordeaux) and came out with a flying 'Level 5 (Intermediate Stage 3)' of a mere possible 7. I'm 5/7ths of the way to being a french expert!

So the course starts tomorrow, and hopefully they can get me in with a host family too, which would be wonderful. So, hopefully, you're favourite Levy gets to fight another day. And it feels quite good that this time I didn't rely on the old Levy luck for things to just fall into place. I actually went and did something. It's starting to seem like the Levy Luck Broadcaster doesn't reach all the way to the south of France.

It seems that I may be on my own....

Rob

Back in Toulouse

Ticket to ride

Something typically beautiful from Toulouse

I'm here again. Beautiful tranquil Toulouse. Although this time it's not quite so tranquil as the students are here. In fact that's an understatement.

The town centre is a madness of bikes and cars and pedestrains encumbered with moving-in stuff and flyers for various clubs and bars. It's very cleary first-days-in-town time for a lot of people here.

Still, all remains charming and agreeable from what I have seen so far.

I am staying with a pair of mighty fine CouchSurfing hosts right in the centre of the city, who've given me a place to stay, loads of advice and help, and also plenty of great nights in. They're all-round wonderful. Slightly heavy on the public displays of affection, but as I'm staying in their appartement which has only one room (see right) I really have no basis for complaint.

It's been wonderful to have a base from which to go to find jobs, arrange meetings with prospective colocateurs (flatmates) and generally soak up some of la vie toulousienne.

He - 25, from Marseilles, plays spanish and french jazz style guitar, trained as a social worker but currently unemployed. She (sitting on the floor on the right on the photo below) - 30, from Brazil, currently working hard for a doctorate in economics.

When I first arrived in Toulouse I met up with a Canadian girl who I'd met in the youth hostel in Montpellier and had gotten along with really well. I spent the night at her new flat and had an evening of vodka with blackcurrant syrup and mushroom crepes. All very wonderful and french, but I woke up in the morning with a nasty stomach ache. I was, apparently, only welcome for one night as she offered to take me down to the youth hostel that afternoon. However, they were full so I fell back on my old favourite, CouchSurfing.com. I was dropped off only about 500m from the flat, but I had all my stuff with me (a backpack, a frontpack, and my favourite 3 quid brown leather effect suitcase from a charity shop in Cambridge) and my state of health was rapidly deteriorating. I had intense pain in my stomach which I attributed to the vodka, aching in all my limbs which I attributed to the bags I was carrying, and was sweating profusely which I attributed to the 34 degree heat.

When I arrived at the 3rd floor flat, hot and sweaty, I thought I needed a shower and a lie down to feel right, but as I was brushing my teeth I vomited profusely into the sink. I then proceeded to spew about 5 more times into the toilet, reaquainting myself with the mushrooms from the night before, seemingly unchanged but coated in a black slime. It soon became clear I was properly ill. I apologised to my new hosts and cleaned out the sink, unblocking the plug with my fingers, and slept for the rest of the day.

Following a day entirely without food I began to feel better and commenced the search for flats and jobs.

My first effort at finding a flat was a little dispiriting. The place was way way out of town in a souless suburb and the three flatmates all worked together at the QuickBurger just across the highway; not exactly my idea of a free-living artisic flatshare. I persisted however, and have an interview tonight with 3 medical students in the centre of town. It sounds absolutely perfect as they speak a little english, but no so much that we'll be conversing in english all the time. My fingers are crosssed.

They're also crossed for a job I just applied for in a darling little place called cafe italiano or something where I just dropped in a CV and got chatting to a couple of the staff. All are super-friendly and were impressed with my level of french. The guy says he'll give me a call.

So: lots to hope for, and some to look forward to, as I may have a few weeks before I can move in to my potential new flat, so maybe a little more travelling? Who knows.

Love to all those thinking of me.

Rob