Annecy - Our saturday treat

 

Saturday was a beautiful sunny day, and we went to explore an old town called Annecy. (click here)

I don't particularly like towns with a history, but some towns feel like they still have the Ancient Forces in them. Annecy was one of them.
  Annecy is probably one of the oldest inhabited sites in the Northern Alps. In fact, recent digs suggests the history of the town goes as far back as 3,100 years before Christ.

The town is situated next to a Lake Annecy (Lac d'Annecy). This lake was once used for transport, fresh water, bathing, and to take away waste. Today it's used for fun purposes. You can rent small paddle boats and small motor boats. (Click here for an image)

Another nice area is a large grassy park. On sunny days you find this park full with people having a picnic, or playing around.

More to the centre of the city it becomes more old. There is quite a major canal, surrounded by old stone buildings. Most of these buildings are restaurants.
  Not very far from the lake, the canal splits, and goes around a large stone building, which used to be the towns prison. (Click here for an image)

On Saturday, during our visit, there was a very clever duck, fishing for yummy treats from a gap at the bottom of the canal.
  The fishes were so yummy, she was risking her life going so deep under, and when she came out with a fish, she was very breathless. (An observation)
  The tired duck, very out of breath, is longingly looking at the source of her treats, contemplating to lose her life again, or going for a treat (A fact).
  The ducks head contains a small amount of common sense (reasoning: after three fishes, the duck turned around, heading for the main lake.) To see the images, visit the the gallery via the link bellow.

That's about all I saw, but hopefully I will be going there again soon. I'll try to persuade mum and dad to rent one of the paddle boats or motor boats, and get you some good pictures.

 

Sunday was another beautiful day, but this time we went to a French market in a nearby village, Divonne-les-Bains. (click here)

I've never been to a French market before today. My overall opinion: wow.

Parking our car nearby, we set off in the direction of the market. The first thing I saw was a small van, selling all kinds of meet. There was probably a line of around 20 people. That was my first impression. A single yellow van?
  Once I rounded the corner, I found a completely different world. A giant snake of stalls seemed to stretch on to infinity, hundreds of people swarming through them.

It was massive. There were stalls selling items from Cheese, to Olives, to thousands of Herbs and Spices, to shoes, to everything! The market had a junction, extending it along another road, making it the shape of a T.

There was a traditional French accordion (click here for a sample of an accordion) playing trying to earn a few coins, people shouting in French at the stalls, probably saying something like "special price, only for half an hour", the smells were just AMAZING.

My favourite stall was the herb, spices and teas. This was not only because of the divine smell and beautiful colours, there were two more reasons.
  I am fascinated by the texture of different spices, it reminds me of HD Sony Video Cameras and how they would be able to capture this.

The second reason is a small game... Ok, it is embarrasing but I will tell you. I sometimes get bored and play games. While I was hanging around the spices stall, I was placing bets on people fighting a sneeze. Spices tickled everones nose, and it is very entertaining to watch them fight it, and try to predict wether they will win or lose (the difference is very obvious). The hazard of being a judge here means YOU will be unfortunately sneezing for the rest of the day. This means that if I would enter the competition at the beginning, I would be a clear winner.

Spices also remind me of slow delicious cooking while the weather is cold and there is not much to do, so I know nobody will switch my computer off, and I also know there will be a delicious dinner at the end.

Oh and before I forget, if you ever go to a French market, and all the cheese people and the olive people will make you taste their food DO NOT TRY THE GREEK OLIVES! THEY ARE THE BLACK ONES WITH WRINKLES AND THE SMELL THAT WILL REMIND YOU OF MY WARNING! TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS! THE SELLER WILL NOT CONSIDER YOU RUDE IF YOU DON'T TRY THEM, BUT IF YOU DO TRY THEM AND SPIT THEM ALL OVER THE PAVEMENT, ITS NOT A PRETTY SIGHT! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

This market happens every Sunday until 1 o'clock, so hopefully I will go there next week. If I go, I'll try to shoot some videos with my camera.

 

Monday and Tuesday, I finally went to visit that school.

Nothing exciting happened these two days. Some time mid morning on Monday, me and my mum went to the school in Coppet, only to find out that their reception had just closed. My mum therefore opened the door and went in anyway. She said "there's nothing wrong with showing them that we are confident and unafraid".

From the technical point of view, I would say the door is closed when the door is closed, and this door was opened.
  We walked in and were ignored for a few minutes. It may have been something to do with the opening and closing hours.

We waited patiently, expectantly, and politely. You may call it the battle of wills. They are generally nice people, and finally they gave up and looked at us.

We explained that I'm the boy that is hoping to start school soon, and to demonstrate our intention, we pulled out half a kilogram of certificates they asked for last time.
  We almost hit a jackpot, we only need two more! But these are tricky, and it may take a few days to get them. There also emerged another small obstacle. In a nutshell, they said I can't go to school A, because I will have to go to a language school B, but school B is oversubscribed."

Now was the time to my algebra skills, and I asked this very cleverly: does it mean I will go to school A?

Their answer: Probably, but I cant tell you at this moment. We consdered this a partial victory.

To be honset with you, the school is very nice, very clean, but also very intimidating. It's very quiet and very empty. The children don't make any noise, they are very quiet, there seems to only be a handfull of them, and the school is spacious and polished, and somehow lifeless.

I will try to keep you tuned on each update, so...

KEEP TUNED