Diamant Arras

Hé hé !

L'Amérique latine, nous voici nous voilà très très bientôt !!!
Plus que quelques heures avant le décollage...
L'excitation et l'appréhension sont 2 émotions qui se battent en duel en ce moment.

Le départ est prévu à 20h ce lundi 7 décembre de Paris CDG et l'atterrisage le mardi 8 décembre à Buenos Aires.
Nous en avons rêvé et ce projet va enfin devenir réalité.

Nous partons tout équipés : les 2 v ...

... the amazing Louvre, with the Mona Lisa and thousands of other pieces of art, as well as the Chateau de Versailles. Anyways, Paris was amazing, and now I'll be in Lille for a couple of days..

My European trip is coming to an end in about 2 weeks or so, when I leave from Dusseldorf on the 8th of December to Fort Myers Florida. But before that I still have a bit of Netherlands and Belgium to enjoy..

... in the last two weeks:
A hell of a lot of rain,
Starting back at school and having loads of lessons cancelled / teachers not turning up (wooppee!!)
Erin's 22nd birthday and a night in the sleaziest French club I will probably ever come across (and will most likely not return to)
The purchase of a printer
11/11 - Remembrance day in Lille (photos attached)
Confiscating a girl's phone in a lesson and then hearing my own go off in my bag!
Preparations to go to Paris!!

... towns, but if that's true then they must be ghost towns!
Dunkirk does have a few art museums, but we were told that the closest one didn't have anything interesting at the moment and the others were more expensive. So we took a walk down to the beach, had a stroll along the sea-front and ate "Moules-Frites" in a sea-side brasserie, and wandered around the shops. It was a nice day out and at least I can now say that I have been to Dunkirk!

... lesson, which was with a teacher that I still hadn't met. Fortunately she was very nice, and the students in her first class were interested and motivated.
The next class however was a different story, and frustrated and upset me a lot, perhaps it was due to it being their final class of the day (at 4.30pm), but the students were easily distracted and chatty, they were rude and they were not afraid of causing offence. One of them did get sent ...

Today we left Dieppe for the battle grounds of the First World War. As we drove we saw many farmers' fields filled with wheat, sugar beets, some cabbage and potatoes. A big part of our day was a visit to Beaumont-Hamel a national historic site with Canadian University students working as tour guides. We soon learned that this is sacred ground...especially for our people of Newfoundland, because it is here that the price of freedom was paid by British subjects from what ...

... each one soldier - before we left home to visit whilst in the battlefields of France. We met Jack's soldier first - he was SGT Claude Castleton VC - he had ran into No Man's Land in the area of Pozieres to retrieve wounded - on his second effort to bring in a wounded man he was shot in the back and killed. Posthumously awarded the VC. Our guide Steve had a photo of him and we put it on his grave - so other ...

... long and the thickness of a little finger), which attaches to the rock, with a claw on the end. I make up my mind to eat some while I'm in the area.
I take a day trip to the west coast to Fisterra (Spanish Finisterre "end of the earth") and try and find Percebes on a restaurant menu, but no luck so I lunch at O Tearrón restaurant - razor clams (navajas), Lubina (bass) gallego style, with roasted red peppers and pepper infused oil; dessert of soft fresh cheese ...

Rise and shine, Up supprisingly early after finishing night shifts the day before. But feeling fresh and raring to go. Kit is packed, got everything I need (or so I think), safely strapped to the bike. Lets give chris a call. "Please leave a mesage the person........." **** he's not up yet. How the **** can't he be up yet? Oh well I thought I'll nip round and wake him, i'm sure he won't mind. Filled the bike up ...