mots de l'étranger II

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My Hamburg

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 How dare do I say 'my'?! hm? Oh well.  I will not speak however of friends as they do not like to have their picture taken.  One of my favourite Hamburg bit was 'the beach'... can you say it's a beach if it's near a river? I'd say yes, after all there are many beaches near the river Loire in Nivernais where my French family comes from. You have sand, you have people lying down on the beach, you have swimmers... well not so... it'd be a bit dangerous unless you really know the place... its shallow and then very deep as boats come and go there, and cargos as well. Opposite you have the port of Hamburg, looking a bit like the machines in War of the World. I absolutely loved it, especially after walking under the sun and visiting around, what great pleasure it was to ask for bubbly water and a bit of wurst and kartoffelsalat (sausage and potato salad), and then watch people go by or read my book.    My second favourite place was an art gallery in the most p...
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De l'Allemagne: monuments

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 No no don't worry I'm not going to redo a madame de Staël, a noble (well as far as I know) lady from France who wrote books at the beginning of the 19th century and is remembered mostly for her book de l'Allemagne.                                                               Bismark monument, Hamburg   (with panels explaning its history and controversy) I vaguely remember her from my highschool as she was included in the Lagarde et Michard , the annual textbook for French literature and culture. Each year was a new century and we started with medieval time when we were in first year so I believe XIX century arrived when I was a teenager. I vaguely remember, from the year before, the walking into nature of monsieur Rousseau, the spleen from the North (England? Scotland?) and the Sturm und Drang...
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Two days at Surrey university

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 For those of you who don't know, I've just registered as a student at Surrey University. It is based in Guildford which means it's not on the other side of the planet from Wantage! You just need to take the Oxford Bus Company X35 or X36 and go into Beauty (ie the countryside surrounding where I live) then arrive in Didcot. Take a train to Reading and change there. So yes really, not far! I plan to go there about once per month. It was only my second day of studies yesterday but I was given the chance to read some of my poems, so I said yes of course! I also heard the other students' work which was great. During the day, there was the Surrey New Writers Festival on campus and my mind (and bank account...) got blown away! I do admit that apart from Amy Key I didn't know anyone. Wow... came back home, around midnight, my bag full of books and I'm now trying to process all the fantastic comments I heard yesterday. It was the best literary festival I went to becau...
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