A few more things.....

I received a lovely email from George, whom you may recall was my teacher in Form II. (I always feel as if that has to be written in roman numerals. Just like in my planning I feel that I need to write the terms of the year Term I, Term II, Term III and so on. We must have started off like that in the olden days. Easier to write straight lines on slates, perhaps!) Anyway, as I was saying! George always writes good stuff, and he has said it's OK for me to publish on my blog the piece he wrote about his father, in response to my piece on Ypres and Passchendaele. I think it's quite moving.

Dear Alison,
The description of your adventures is always fascinating but the story of your visit to Ypres and Passchendaele was particularly moving. My father fought in Gallipoli where he was decorated, and then in France. He was badly wounded at Passchendaele early in the battle. This was fortunate; had he kept fighting he would almost certainly have been killed. The Otago regiment suffered heavy casualties. He returned to France after six months in an English hospital and finished the war leading his old Company. He felt they were wonderful men. He talked to me about the war when I was about 50. He could not describe his contempt for the British commanders adequately and his praise for the NZers, Aussies, Sikhs and Gurkhas was unstinting. Previously, I had believed that the Gallipoli campaign was the worst one of the war, but Dad said nothing could have prepared men for the horrors of the war in France and Belgium.
I guess you will have plenty of adventures to recall whenever you are bored. It will also give you a glow when, back in NZ, you see some of the places you visited shown on tv. I know I get a real feeling of satisfaction when I see a place I have visited.
Interesting stuff. You should read Birdsong by Sebastien Faulkes if you haven't already. (I'm sure I've already promoted that book. I wonder if I will get agent's fees?)I also think that the Blackadder WWI series gives a damn good idea of how the people in command operated. So thanks George.
Other things. I went into Centre Ville after uni this afternoon and had a cuppa with my friend Abir. And while I was there a manifestation went past. Which is a demonstration. A big march along the street. Yep - university students. Abir says there is one most days. When I walked back to the bus stop they were having a rally in front of the Hotel de Ville. Apparently all the students have received a letter from the head of the university saying that it is time they came back. But no, they are still on strike. I believe that last year the strike lasted for 3 months. Or it might have been the year before. I guess it's something for them to focus on during the dreary winter months. I am more bemused about it than anything else - I don't know what to think.
I also forgot to mention another memorial we saw in Berlin. Bebelplatz is where the Nazis had a book-burning in 1933 of all works by subversive writers. You can't see anything in the platz at first, then you notice a square of sort of smoky glass. You look down into a stark white room lined with empty bookshelves. The significance of that is obvious, but as Cal pointed out, there are many layers of meaning. He had an old Jewish lady on one of his tours, and she said it looked like the beds in a concentration camp. And then if you look down through the glass you see your own reflections, and you can make what you want of that. I am too full of symbolism I guess.
I mentioned the beautiful sculpture of the mother cradling her dead or dying soldier son. It's in what was once a royal guardhouse and is an anti-war
memorial. The sculptor is Käthe Kollwitz. Thanks Louise for reminding me of that. The last time Louise was there it held an eternal flame and the remains of an unknown soldier and was guarded by goose-stepping East German soldiers, so it was a different experience this time.

And a straight 'lift' from Louise's blog. She has said it so well!

Certainly it's a city with a lot of scars.
On the train to the airport on Saturday morning I realised that it is
still a divided city in a way - the eastern suburbs are really run
down. Rehabilitation is slow and costly - the city is massively in
debt. It carries a huge historical burden. In some ways it's still
struggling for identity. Yet it seems to have an energy and a hope
for a great future. Perhaps that's what touched me the most. I'd been
in a very small way a witness to the new beginning for Berlin and
Germany back in 1990. Only months before reunification it had seemed
like an impossible dream. In 2009 I got to see just how far hope had
taken the city.

I think that's all. I need to move on now! :-)
It's been a funny old week. A bit of the post-holiday blues and Sophie's birthday. I have tomorrow off as I am usually at the Lycee all day Friday and they are still on holiday. I will do some study and also plan some lessons for the classes for the new term. Claudine wants me to do a unit on the Maori and gave me an article she had copied from a text book about how upset Pita Sharples and the Maori people are about Robbie Williams getting a Maori tattoo. She wants me to lead a discussion on it! I just don't feel like I have nearly enough depth of knowledge to do that. (And nor do I think the kids speak English well enough.) And I hadn't known about that controversy. I wouldn't especially want one myself, but I quite like Robbie Williams' tattoo! Oh dear. Speaking of the Lycee, you might remember that I had lunch last year with Any, one of the teachers, who had the very cute little grand daughters. And I chatted about rugby with her husband. Well, he died suddenly last week during, or just after, an operation. So that was quite a shock. He was probably about my age. The nice thing was that one of the teachers was thoughtful enough to email me to let me know.
And on that note.... No, surely I can think of something cheerful to say to round off today's epistle. Yes, I have been here for 6 months now - isn't that amazing? I wasn't sure that I was going to last very long at all at the start, but now as I become more and more tuned into things, I am getting quite attached to funny old Poitiers, and certainly to some of the people. As I am a slow learner, I probably need to stay for 2 years so that I really will be able to speak French properly!