And Tonight Jennifer We Eat The Chat!! (Le Mans)

Member Name: jenni_a

Product:	Le Mans
Date:	30/05/04 (214 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some nice places to see, Not too expensive

Disadvantages: you have to find the stuff interesting

Most of my holidays in my lifetime have been made through my school as my family has pet dogs and unfortunately we cannot go on holiday leaving them behind in kennels for too long and so we are limited. In October of 2003 I made a visit along with my classmates to Le Mans in France situated in the Loire Valley. This however was not an ordinary trip as I will describe to you further down.

The trip was to cost me (or my parents you choose) £500. At first I thought hmmm that?s a tad pricey for what I?m getting here but I was desperate to go as I felt my French speaking could benefit from the practice after all this was the supposed point of the trip! Le Mans was the chosen destination because it was apparent that English wasn?t a widely spoken language and so the sentence ?Parlez-vous anglais sil vous plait?? couldn?t act as a quick fix for everything like it had done in past years when trips were made to hugely touristy places like Paris. Anyway, I?m drifting from the point I was edging at expense but bearing in mind this paid for (supposedly) travel expenses, accommodation, entry fees and food. This trip though, unlike the Iceland one didn?t come along with extra costs unless spending money is counted. Also it must be taken into account that we did in fact manage to lower prices as we were given group discount as well as student discounts. Our accommodation could also be considered a bit out of the ordinary as we were all being appointed to French families but expenses were still required none the less as the families were expected to provide us with meals and washing facilities.

~*~ Trip Preparations ~*~

There weren?t many things that we were told to buy for the trip unlike Iceland and so therefore my parents were spared the £300 dished out for a coat and walking boots, well so I thought because when adding costs up (as my mother likes to do) she reckons that this amount was in fact spent providing me with new clothes so that I looked pres
entable and not like my usual scruffy self (of course I?m just kidding I do know basic grooming skills)

The one main thing we were provided with was a sheet of basic French phrases which did come in highly useful. If you?re travelling to a place where it?s doubtful English is going to be well known take basic phrases unless of course you?re fluent in French in which case don?t listen to me :O) It was hugely useful when we needed directions and when you take ill with the flu midweek and have to venture to the chemists alone, with no one, on your lonesome?you get the point. Anyway, a phrase book or sheet or some knowledge might come in useful :OP

~*~ The Journey ~*~

To get to Le Mans from Washington near Newcastle we travelled on a coach and on a ferry. The coach however didn?t only cater for our school as it was arranged via the company the trip was arranged which I?m unsure of the name. The coach company was called Rush Travel and was absolutely excellent. Often I find (having been on a few trips involving coaches) that the driver and the guide can often be dull and miserable and they can often hate having the company of children and so therefore restrict us from being able to do a lot of things such as eat or drink or even use the toilet but the crew from Rush were simply wonderful. The journey was extremely long and tiring and despite travelling throughout the night not much sleep was to be gained as we had to make various stops for other students travelling to France and they were all plonks that didn?t shut up talking on their mobile phones and they all thought they were better than us because they had REAL Burberry scarves and we were all common charvas from Newcastle that could only afford cheap knockoffs (well that was how they made us feel when in fact we can afford to buy real stuff, can u tell I?m digging myself out of the hole I created?).

Eventually we reached Dover where we got a ferry to Calais. We used a P&O ferry
and the journey lasted about 1 hour. Since it was early morning breakfast was being provided but the queues were horrendous and I?m a terrible breakfast person I hate most varieties of it. The ferry however offered a full cooked breakfast, cereals and croissants etc. I settled for a coffee. For the younger generation the ferry offered an arcade and for adults there was a bar. As well as this was duty free but I didn?t have the chance to check out any of these as the queues for breakfast were so long and the journey was so short.

From Calais we travelled by coach to Le Mans and by the time we arrived it was about 8:00.By this time as well as having feelings of under nourishment and sleep deprivation I was terrified about being fobbed off with some French family that I didn?t know from Adam but that was my own personal problem and I at least had a friend to get me by.

~*~ The Accommodation ~*~

Yes I see you all sitting there thinking well how the hell can she recommend any accommodation to us when she didn?t stay in a hotel!! Well easy, the teachers stayed in a bit swanky hotel or so they told us until about 3 days in. The hotel was in the centre of town and was booked through the company and was the Premiere Classe ? apparently it was far from it. I?ve conducted research on Le Mans official website http://www.ville-lemans.fr/ which I was so kindly introduced to by my ?family? and I asked for the opinion of the staff members of what it was like. According to the website (which is unfortunately/obviously is in French) the hotel boasts the bare essentials and accepts animals but is also kept under the ?sans etoiles? section which to us English is the without stars section which isn?t necessarily a bad thing but me being fussy likes to see how many stars a hotel has. Le Mans offers a wide choice of hotels which can be seen on the website however unless u know basic French you may find the website both hard to navigate and hard to understand
. According to the staff that stayed in the hotel they said that it was ok for what they required but it didn?t have the slightly luxurious feeling that a hotel normally has.

For those of you who are interested my house was lovely :OP. My friend and I were provided with our own room with TV and storage space as well as being provided with our own bathroom, the only inconvenience to this however was that we had to trample down to the ground floor from the loft conversion in order to shower. The family were very helpful and provided everything we needed although the language barrier was often very difficult and the way of living was very different and sometimes I sat thinking please God send me home, but most of you won?t be left with that problem. Staying with the family however was a good opportunity to develop my confidence and independence and work my way out of tres awkward situations.

~*~ Itinerary ~*~

We spent the holiday travelling to various points in the Loire Valley which is famous for its chateaus although all of these places are nice and easy to get to from Le Mans.

The first full day of the holiday was what was described as a getting to know the family day which to me was more of a hell day. We did however get the opportunity to see some of the town we wouldn?t if we were just normal tourists. Le Mans in the way we were shown it on this Sunday was not a posh touristy place but was in fact just a normal place with graffiti from rebellious teenagers, little corner shops and streets of queer houses. I say queer because they were the not the sorts of houses I was used to seeing. From one side a house would look like a stone built bungalow and from the other a newly built three storey modern mansion. We visited the local park which was quite big with the normal parky features, posh merry-go-rounds, slides etc. I asked around my friends who were with different families to see if they did anything different that was worth me
ntioning and they visited the cathedral of St. Julien. The cathedral is on a hill in the centre of town and from the outside looks very beautiful. My friends however described the cathedral dull and boring however what more can be expected from touring 15 and 16 year olds, my guess is they didn?t understand the tour guide and weren?t really interested. Some of my other friends visited the local market which I?ll describe a bit more later as I also was given the chance to visit it later in the week. The staff however decided to have a much better time than most of us as they went to the theme park. Well it was more of a park with rides a bit like what you get at the beach except this wasn?t near a beach. Yes I?m babbling I?m well aware. The park with rides (as I?m going to call it) did in fact look very entertaining and the staff informed us that it was a great day and that some of the rides were in fact quite scary. We had a stroll through later in the week but the rides were unfortunately closed but they did look a whole load of and I regret not being able to test them out.

By Monday morning I was itching to get out of that house. I didn?t even bother checking the itinerary I just piled into the car to meet the rest of the group and our teachers. We spent the morning taking part in language activities and touring the centre of town which had a nice shopping centre, nothing huge but a nice shopping opportunity. We were able to explore the old and new parts of the town with a map (which as a typical woman I couldn?t read ? don?t take offence ladies I?m sorry :O( ) I ended up guiding my small group to the edge of town and the local maccy D?s, how gutted were we knowing we?d left our spending money on the coach! When I?d finally managed to lead us back to the coach we had time to eat lunch (which I had ditched in the bin near the creperie) and then we headed off to Le Mans 24h race track. Before going for a tour around the buildings we drove in our coach with
a tour guide who spoke perfect English (I wish my French had compared) around the race track itself which is in fact in parts a normal road which gets closed at race time. This visit however was not something I showed a keen interest in and I rudely listened to my music most of the way around the track however the male gender seemed to respond well to the visit. After seeing the track we were taken into the buildings where there were model cars in cabinets of past race cars and we were shown what goes on at race time and where the media watches etc. Again I rudely stared at the floor because I just wasn?t interested but others in the group seemed to enjoy it and said they learnt some really interesting things. Next door to the race track entrance was a nice car museum. The museum showed cars throughout the history of the race and there were rooms with mini movies about the races which unfortunately I didn?t understand. The museum was very small and was in fact only filled with cars so I was quite bored, its one of those places that you only visit if you have a strong interest in the subject matter, undoubtful that it could be a good day for some people.

Tuesday we ventured out of Le Mans to Paris so therefore that day of the holiday is hardly appropriate to this op and so I might make a completely separate opinion out of that :O) I heard that you there sitting at your desk saying God help us! Talk about giving me a complex!!

Moving swiftly on?Wednesday. We spent the morning on language activities in the shopping centre again because we?re cool, or in my case I ditched my minging salami sandwiches, ate a crepe and went to the pharmacy, alone, by myself, on my lonesome without anyone to help me speak to the French woman. I surprised myself actually; I managed to buy orange strepsils with sugar without making a complete prat out of myself. Then instead of conducting the interviews that we were meant to (which just caused trouble anyway because the ma
nager of the centre tried to have us chucked out) we shopped. I didn?t buy anything highly useful apart from a CD ? Kyo since you asked, they?re cool buy them ? ooh another op coming! Hey you don?t sigh!! After lunch we made our way to zoo de la fleche. We spent the whole afternoon touring the zoo looking at animals and watching the various shows. The zoo had all sorts of animals including lions, monkeys, polar bears and this giant hamster thing (I don?t know what it was because its name card was in French but it looked like an overgrown hamster). The zoo was reasonably easy to navigate and it had a café which unfortunately wasn?t open when we visited. The zoo also had a gift shop which was horrendously overpriced even in euros so me being the typical stinge that I am didn?t bother buying anything.

On Thursday we didn?t bother with language activities :O):O) yes a double smile :OP and we headed straight to the abbaye royale de fontevraud which we wandered round for a short while admiring the architecture but again not many people appeared interested. There was however a particularly scary video which we enjoyed, the point of it however was unknown. I think that this is a place to visit if you?re interested in the history of Le Mans but being 15 and 16 and not having a fluent understanding of the language and what was going on the group showed a short lived attention span. In the afternoon we travelled through to a chateau which I really don?t remember the name of but the Loire valley (which is the area we were staying) is extremely well known for its chateaus and has its own website and so those who are interested in visiting chateaus can pick and choose from a huge range of chateaus in the surrounding area and most of which can be viewed in English for easy understanding (sorry for having such a rubbish memory)

Friday is another day of distant memory. We visited the local market in the morning where goods of huge variety can be purchased. We took
part in a language game and then we were allowed to go off and shop either in the market or in the shopping centre. I opted to have a quick rummage in the market to see if there was anything worthy of my money but then shortly afterwards found myself heading across the road to the shopping centre. The market is held twice a week and sells things ranging from fruit and veg to tapes and CDs. They also had a crepe van which I found myself in the queue for. One of my main loves of France are crepes especially ones avec nutella. Heaven. The market is large and stretches right across the car parks in the centre of town. They?re a nice feature for tourists to have a quick nose around and buy novelty souvenirs. In the afternoon we headed to another chateau which I have again forgotten the name of and then we headed to a winery place where we toured underground and watched the process of how wine is made. We were then allowed to purchase two bottles per person (naughty underage drinking) but we weren?t allowed to drink it and it was meant to be for our parents. When I say meant to be I mean that basically some rebellious members of the group lied saying it was for their French family as some sort of thank you then they guzzled the lot for themselves.

Those are just some of the main attractions in Le Mans and the surrounding area, more information can be found on Le Mans official website which I gave you all earlier.

~*~ The Food ~*~

The food in Le Mans was very much typical of what we have here in Britain. Creperies are very popular places to eat out and crepes are gorgeous. I?m not sure if I?m a massive fan of the speciality of Le Mans which was like a meat paste ? minging. It also took some getting used to drinking coffee from a bowl and watching the family dip their toast into the coffee ? is it just me that thinks that?s a weird thing to do? Apart from their minor strangisms (is that a word?) the food was just normal everyday stuff, steaks, st
ews, sandwiches, salad etc. Despite constant mocking from the son we never did eat the family cat which was a Godsend. The one thing that did affect me greatly was how much the typical French family ate, it felt like we would literally finish a meal and we would start a new one. Each day I?d open my packed lunch and think ?is this to last me and Tash the whole week?? Obviously many of you won?t have that problem if you?re staying in a hotel or eating out but my God it was unbelievable how much they tried to make me scoff!! Food is quite cheaply priced in France (maybe why they tried to feed us so much) so I wouldn?t worry too much on blowing your full wad of cash on food.

~*~ Overall ~*~

Overall this was a great experience. Despite staying with a family with so many bonding barriers I enjoyed myself greatly. I would recommend a visit to Le Mans if you?re looking for a peaceful sort of holiday rather than one that is jam packed full of tourists and people. Le Mans is full of interesting places to go and is a short drive from Paris and so a day could easily be spent there if you?re eager to visit. An average amount of money is recommended as extra isn?t required for extreme expenses such as food. I would love to return to Le Mans in the future maybe when my French is less restricted!

Thanks for the read
Jenni xx :O)

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