Jetting Educated

Since I last wrote, I've had a good time living and working in the Alps, and now I am stopping for five weeks in the Hungarian Capital- Budapest!   For the past 22 months, I have found myself in over 30 locations in 12 countries but this is the first time that I feel I am really living in a foreign land.  The map shows locations I have been to since I left a 'normal' life the UK in July 2013 and stated a more unstable life of adventure It's quite a decent list so far, and actually a lot of my time has been in France. In the ski resorts La Rosiere and Courchevel I stayed for months at a time, and the same goes for my Mum's in western France, but I won't count them as having been experiences of getting to know a foreign country as a resident.           Ski resorts aren't really representative of the country they are in; they are super-commercialised and exist to make money, rather than being a place that people actually live. S...

[I am back in England now, of course. I did find this forgotten post, and thought I would publish it posthumously (the season's dead, not me)] On Thursday I will be coming back to England. During the past fortnight especially, I have been really looking forward to getting back. But now that I have done my last shift with the guests I know I'll miss the place, the people ad my great job.         I've been thinking about the start of the season fondly. Looking back on my first week from the distance of the final one is pleasant as it was a time of great adventure, yet so much has changed within that time. When we had just arrived, we were very excited (I was so hyper but trying to keep it on the down low a little since people didn't really know me yet)- a new place to explore with friends we had only known a week. All the had to do on the first week was clean the childcare rooms and play with the toys to, you  know, make sure they weren't bro...

There has always been a slight rivalry in resort between the childcare team and the chalet hosts. Essentially, they don't like that we appear to do less work (mainly because we are always being loud and having fun) and we often envy their shared days off and the huge tips they receive. Thankfully, once we all got to know each other, most of us put these feelings aside and got on well. There were people wouldn't shut up about childcare hours (which actually tend to be very similar to hosts', just at different times) but then some people do love to complain. As self appointed Childcare-Host Relations Officer its been a good season and not too tricky. This week, when we have had to clean up the resort, some of the hosts got a bit personal. I think it was a case of either group not fully understanding that we were both having to do a lot of work, resulting in childcare being called lazy, which made us want to prove them right by not helping. For a collective group wh...

The season is coming to an end and it feels as though its death is an agonising one. I did well to maintain enthusiasm over the last 6 weeks of sunshine and no snowfall. Everybody (save the vampire Lestat) enjoys the sunshine but when you live at 1850 meters and all there is to do is work and ski, you don't always go mad for a constant helping of rays which melt the snow.  We moved the kids to this slope on Monday.  But by Weds, it looked like this. The slopes have now been dalmationised (I just coined that) with many patches of grass, dirt and rock being resurrected all over the mountain. Whilst this looks throrougly horrible off piste, ruining the beautiful uniform whiteness, on the piste it becomes dangerous. If you hit a patch of dirt the likely result is that you will go flying as the skis won't want to move through it and you'll be flung forward. If only one of your skis hits it, the other will keep going and this forces the splits to occur w...

One of the things that I loved about being a teacher was the relationships that you develop with your kids and how you can progress from being just another adult, to a person who they look up to, respect, and even actually like. Here in La Rosiere I wasn't sure how different it would be with only seeing children for one week. It depends on what shifts I work but I can end up seeing some children quite a bit during their time here and getting to know them. Often, the more I get to know a child or a group of children the more fun the job is. A few weeks back I was working with a 12 year old boy with Down's Syndrome. I went on his skiing lessons and was at his chalet for lunch and high tea (what the company calls dinner time), so I spent loads of time with him.  He was usually not difficult to work with but he had his moments, as every child does. The first shift I spent with him I was telling someone how well behaved he had been, but then I recalled some of the things...

Vacancy Location: The Palace Penthouse, Rue de petit St. Bernard, La Rosiere, France Duration: This week only as Roberto has been transferred Ideal tennant: A non smoking male who likes making noise, taking the piss/having the piss taken out of, and has a high tolerance for mess Rent: Nil, just prepare to have your personal possessions go missing The opening is to share with myself, Dion Bear, and 10 other guys in a staff accommodation known as the Palace. I feel that it does not deserve its jestful nickname, because, although it is not much to look at, its hardly a terrible place to live rent-free. The beauty of it, apart from having some of our female colleagues next door, is that with so many of us here there's rarely a dull moment. Organised fun- just as good as regular fun I used to live in a room with five others: Ed (often drinking tea and taking leisurely showers),  Ollie (child at heart who will smash glasses and throw cold water at you in ...

The 'baby listening' shift is something I've mentioned before and its really quite boring. Usually my job involves standing in a circle of children 90 strong and leading songs at the top of my voice, having food with them and stuffing my face whilst telling them shit jokes and schmoozing the parents for tips, or hanging out with them in evening clubs where I make misteltoe hats and biology themed art for my house. Excellent job overall. Excellent apart from the baby listening which has me sitting down for 3 hours outside a child's room whilst the adults eat to make sure that the kids are safe. This Wednesday night had myself and Danni at a chalet called the Braconnier which is where we are stationed to eat with the children this week. I think because the rest of my job is so fun that it makes this shift all the more bland.            If you've been to uni then you know that 'lecture feeling' you can get at times. You can only t...

There is a bottle of 45 percent rum underneath my bed. Here it has rested since December 31st, when half of the bottle had either been consumed by myself or awarded to friends. Its pretty disgusting, but I bought it, so I intend to drink it, because wasting alcohol is a sin. However, it now sits there, next to a bottle of J.P Chenet and the dregs of someone's Malibu, untouched, as I am sober for January whilst on a Ski season in France. This marks the  longest period of time that I've not had any alcohol since I was somewhere in 17, which was seven years ago. My initial thought was: its pretty bad that drinking has been such a frequent occurrence in my life. But then who else could say that they've not had any booze in a month unless they were actively avoiding it? (I guess the answer to that is people who don't drink that much!) Having said that, I know I did drink too much. I had not been the 'responsible biologist' that I advocate myself as being...

After some people have said that I don't really talk about what I'm doing for work on my travels, I am going to talk about my job in childcare in La Rosiere, and why I love it. In summary, it rocks. In exchange for looking after children and being as noisy as they are, I get all the food I want, accommodation and a lift pass for the St. Bernardo area so that I can ski in France as well as Italy.          Plus I get a few hundred pounds a month which I barely need to touch since I'm not drinking this month (shock horror). The pros aren't without the cons but overall I can't see how anyone could dislike it here. At the momet I'm sitting on a coach with a thermos of hot chocolate and I'm actually doing my second job, which is transfer repping. I take guests from resort to airport, pick up new ones and return. Its not always as smooth as that but its generally  a good way to spend transfer day (it certainly beats cleaning the play rooms or doing...